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®fje Hake Cngltsif) Classics; 

REVISED EDITION WITH HELPS TO STUDY 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 

BY 

CHARLES DICKENS 


EDITED BY 

EDWARD CHAUNCEY BALDWIN 

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 


SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 
CHICAGO NEW YORK 







/’ 



Copyright 1906, 1919 
By Scott, Foresman and Company 








✓ 


ROBERT O. LAW COMPANY 


EDITION BOOK MANUFACTUR 
CHICAGO, U. S 

©Cl. A 5 255 3 0 


MAY 16 1319 


ERS 

A 


i. 


1 



To 

Two Tolerant Readers 
This Edition of A Tale of Two Cities 
is Affectionately Inscribed 
by 

Their Son 


/ 







/ 



PREFACE 


This edition of A Tale of Two Cities has been prepared 
in the belief that teachers of English everywhere would 
find an edition of this popular classic serviceable. The 
text is taken, with the kind permission of the publish¬ 
ers, from the Gadshill edition of Dickens’s Works. Only 
such notes have been admitted as seemed absolutely es¬ 
sential to the understanding of the text. Even with this 
limitation, the aim has been, not so much to provide infor¬ 
mation, as to put the student in the way of finding u for him¬ 
self. Similarly, the questions at the end of the volume are 
intended to be suggestive rather than exhaustive. The aim 
has been, not to include all the questions that might profitably 
be asked, but to supply a basis for other and perhaps better 
questions. If the introduction, notes, and questions serve 
in any degree to awaken or to increase a love for Dickens, 
the purpose of the editor will have been accomplished. 

E. C. B. 


Urbana, Illinois, Nov. 1, 1905. 























. 










































































































































CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Introduction 

I. Life. 5 

II. Dickens’s Novels.16 

III. A Tale of Two Cities .31 

IV. Suggestions for Study.41 

V. Bibliography.43 

VI. Chronological List.44 

Author *s Preface . ..47 * 

/ 

BOOK THE FIRST 
RECALLED TO LIFE 

CHAPTER 

I. The Period.49 

II. The Mail. . 53 

III. The Night Shadows .60 

IV. The Preparation .66 

V. The Wine-shop .81 

VI. The Shoemaker.95 


BOOK THE SECOND 
THE GOLDEN THREAD 

I. Five Years Later. 168 

II. A Sight. 116 

III. A Disappointment. 124 

IV. Congratulatory. 141 

V. The Jackal.I 49 


1 




















2 A TALE OF TWO CITIES 

CHAPTER PAGE 

VI. Hundreds of People.157 

VII. Monseigneur in Town. 172 

VIII. Monseigneur in the Country. 183 

IX. The Gorgon’s Head.190 

X. Two Promises. 204 

XI. A Companion Picture. 214 

XII. The Fellow of Delicacy. 219 

XIII. The Fellow of No Delicacy.228 

XIV. The Honest Tradesman . 234 

XV. Knitting. 247 

XVI. Still Knitting. 261 

XVII. One Night. 275 

XVIII. Nine Days. 281 

XIX. An Opinion. 289 

XX. A Plea.299 

XXI. Echoing Footsteps.304 

XXII. The Sea Still Rises.318 

XXIII. Fire Rises.. 

XXIV. Drawn to the Loadstone Rock. 334 


BOOK THE THIRD 

THE TRACK OF A STORM 

I. In Secret.. 

II. The Grindstone.. 

III. The; Shadow .. 

IV. Calm in Storm.. 

V. The Wood-Sawyer.. 

VI. Triumph.. 

VII. A Knock at the Door.. 

VIII. A Hand at Cards.. 

IX. The Game Made.. 

X. The Substance of the Shadow. 444 

XI. Dusk. . 

XII. Darkness. 464 

XIII. Fifty-two . 

































A TALE OF TWO CITIES 3 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XIV. The Knitting Done .490 

XV. The Footsteps Die Out Forever .506 

Appendix 

Helps to Study..519 

Suggestions for Dramatization.524 

Chronological Table.527 

Report on Fiction.532 












































































« 


















. 





INTRODUCTION 

I 

LIFE 

Charles Dickens was born at Landport, in Portsea, on the 
south coast of England, February 7, 1812. Of Dickens’s 
ancestry nothing is known that would in any way 
Birth help to explain his genius, unless it be the single 
Parentage tradition that his grandmother, who was house¬ 
keeper for a wealthy family at Crewe, had been 
locally famous as an entertaining story teller. Charles was 
the second of eight children. His father, John Dickens, was 
a clerk in the navy pay office with a salary of eighty pounds 
a year. Though this was subsequently increased to three 
hundred and fifty pounds, the elder Dickens was never able 
to live within his income. To realize the kind of man he was, 
we have but to read David Copper field, making due allowance 
for the artistic idealization that transmuted the commonplace 
clerical drudge into Wilkins Micawber. Of Mrs. Dickens 
it is sufficient to say that she sat for the portrait of Mrs. 
Nickleby. 

Few novelists have treated the pathos of childhood so sym¬ 
pathetically as Dickens. His tenacious memory allowed no 
incidents of his own unhappy childhood to escape 
Yeais him, and again and again in his novels he records 
the scenes, the incidents, and the emotions of his 
early years. In The Uncommercial Traveller, he gives us a 
picture of himself as a child. The picture is that of a “very 
queer, small boy,” nine years old, with delicate health; fond 
jf reading, for he knows all about Falstaff and Prince Hal. 
Dickens always believed that his feeble health in childhood 

5 


6 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


was in one way an inestimable advantage to him; for, while 
the other boys were playing, he had no recourse but to read. 
Luckily he had access to some really good books. In David 
Copper field he tells us that they included Roderick Random, 
Peregrine Pickle, Humphrey Clinker, Tom Jones, The Vicar 
oj Wakefield, Don Quixote, Gil Bias, and Robinson Crusoe. 
‘‘They kept alive my fancy,” he says, “and my hope of some¬ 
thing beyond that place and time.” He tells us also that he 
used to impersonate the characters, Tom Jones or Roderick 
Random, for weeks at a stretch. 

The Dickens family life seems to have been a rather migra¬ 
tory one. They moved from Portsea to Chatham, thence to a 
dingy suburb of London; and once for some months the 
family, like the Dorrits, took up their abode in a debtors 
prison—the Marshalsea. The prison episode marked the 
lowest ebb of the family fortunes. After it was over, Charles 
went to school for the few months that comprised his formal 
education. It is a pleasant picture of Dickens as a schoolboy 
that is recalled many years afterward by one who had been 
his schoolfellow. 

My recollection of Dickens whilst at school ... is that of 
a healthy-looking boy, small but well built, with a more than 
usual flow of spirits, inducing to harmless fun, seldom or never, I 
think, to mischief. . He invented what he termed a 

lingo, ’ produced by the addition of a few letters of the same 
sound to every word; and it was our ambition, walking and 
talking thus along the street, to be considered foreigners. 

Dickens’s school days were over when he was but fifteen 
years of age. In May, 1827, we find him in the employment 
of a solicitor, at a salary of thirteen shillings six- 

^ cierk" * P ence a week, afterwards increased to fifteen 
shillings. Here he picked up the knowledge of 
lawyers and legal, or illegal, methods which he afterwards 
turned to such good account in fiction. 


INTRODUCTION 


7 


But it was not foreordained that Dickens should remain a 
lawyer’s clerk. His father had, after leaving the debtor’s 
prison, taken up journalism; and, in 1828, Dickens decided 
to follow his example. He consequently began the study of 
jhorthand, working at it with indefatigable energy. At th$ 
same time, and as a means of recreation, he spent a good deal 
of time in the library of the British Museum, at- 
journaiism j em p^ n g remedy the defects of his early training. 
This sudden awakening of ambition was certainly connected 
with an early love affair, about which we know very little 
except that the young lady afterward married some one else, 
that she was the prototype of Dora in David Copperfield , 
and that even twenty years afterward Dickens could not speak 
of her without emotion. Disappointment at his failure to 
win his first love seems but to have made Dickens v^ork the 
harder, and he ultimately became an expert stenographer. 
He was nineteen when he entered the gallery of the House of 
Commons as a reporter for the True Sun. When, in 1835, he 
received an appointment as reporter for the Morning Chron¬ 
icle, his. future as a journalist seemed assured. 

Soon he began to write for the periodicals. On the publi¬ 
cation of his first article, “A Dinner at Poplar Walk’’ (it will 
be found in Sketches by Boz under the title “Mr. Minns and 
his Cousin”), he shed tears of happiness. His first sustained 
effort at authorship was the writing of the Pickwick Papers. 
A caricaturist named Seymour had proposed to a firm of pub^ 
lishers a “series of Cockney sporting plates.’’ The pub¬ 
lishers finally agreed that Seymour should furnish four cari¬ 
catures on sporting subjects every month, and that the pic¬ 
tures should be accompanied by letter-press. In casting 
about for a suitable author to furnish the latter they fixed upon 
Dickens as a young man of literary talent whose sketches and 
tales had already produced something of a journalistic sensa- 


8 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


tion. Dickens was to be paid fourteen pounds a month for 
his part of the work. The venture threatened to be a com¬ 
plete failure; the first few numbers fell flat. But suddenly 
Sam Weller appeared on the scene and turned failure into 
success. This apparently Dickens had anticipated, for on 
the day after the appearance of the first number of Pickwick , 
April 2, 1836, he had married Miss Catherine Hogarth, a 
daughter of one of his fellow-reporters on the Chronicle. 
With the publication of the successive numbers of the Pick¬ 
wick Papers , Dickens leaped into prominence as an author. 
The public recognition of his genius was instantaneous and 
complete. The only parallel is Byron’s awaking to find him¬ 
self famous in 1809. The first order for Part I. of the Pick¬ 
wick Papers was for four hundred copies; that for Part XV. 
was for forty thousand copies. Nor did the public estimate 
of Dickens ever materially change; he remained popular to 
his death, and has remained so since. It has been estimated 
that there were sold of his works in England alone during the 
twelve years succeeding his death, four millions, two hundred 
and thirty-nine thousand volumes. 

His next four years were phenomenally productive. Aside 
from his work as a reporter, he wrote in 1836 a successful 
farce, The Strange Gentleman, and a popular comic opera, The 
Village Coquettes. In 1837 he became editor of Bentley's 
Magazine , and began in that periodical the publication of 
Oliver Twist. Nicholas Nickleby , also, was begun and fin¬ 
ished between April, 1838 and October, 1839. This made 
three long novels, besides a great deal of other literary work, 
in less than four years. 

Surely this was a sufficient outlet, one would think, for even 
such abounding physical energy as his. But Dickens’s rest¬ 
less energy was such as to make constant change and excite¬ 
ment an imperative necessity. The Old Curiosity Shop and 


INTRODUCTION 


9 


Barnaby Rudge were both finished in 1841, and in that year 
he yielded to his impulse to see something of the world. First 
t i came a notable visit to Edinburgh, “the Athens 
of the North.” He was received with civic honors. 
There was a banquet with three hundred guests; and he was 
formally presented with the freedom of the city. Yet, amid 
adulation sufficient to turn the head of a lesser man, Dickens, 
not yet thirty and the son of an insolvent debtor, behaved 
with a modest yet manly dignity that recalls the demeanor of 
Burns, the Scottish peasant, who in that same city and under 
conditions somewhat similar had borne himself “like a king 
in exile.” 

An even more difficult test of Dickens’s strength of mind 
was in store for him in the circumstances of his visit to 
America, whither he sailed, accompanied by Mrs. Dickens, 
on the fourth of January, 1842. The first part of his stay 
in America was one continuous ovation. “How can I tell 
you,” he wrote, concerning his experience in Boston, “what 
has happened since that first day ? How can I give you the 
faintest notion of my reception here; of the crowds that pour 
in and out the whole day; of the '^^«>ple that line the streets 
when I go out; of the cheering when I went to the theatre; of 
the copies of verses, letters of congratulation, 
First Visit we } comes 0 f all kinds, balls, dinners, assemblies, 

to America . 

without end? Certain it is that the American 
people welcomed Dickens too boisterously. Unaccustomed 
as they then were to entertaining the guests of the nation, 
they gave him no rest day or night. His progress through 
New England was almost as fatiguing as the campaign tour 
of a presidential candidate. At some Y ’he smaller cities 
through w T hich he passed almost the entire population turned 
out to greet him, and the train was stopped expressly to 
afford the people a sight of him. In the larger cities where 


10 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


he spoke, receptions preceded and followed the lecture. And, 
as if this were not enough, after he had retired, completely 
exhausted, college glee clubs serenaded him. 

What wonder that his whole impression of America was 
colored by the physical weariness consequent upon being over¬ 
entertained? On his return to England his unpleasant im¬ 
pressions of America were embodied in American Notes 
and Martin Chuzzlewit. So severe was his criticism of 
American life and manners that the effect well-nigh justi¬ 
fied hia. own statement that he had “sent them all stark, 
staring, raving mad across the water.” In 1844, he again 
set forth, this time to Italy, where he spent a year, embody¬ 
ing the results of his observations in Pictures from Italy. 
Dombey and Son he wrote also on the Continent, whence he 
finally returned to England in the summer of 1847. 

The next five years mark the culmination of Dickens's ca¬ 
reer. Never before nor afterward was his power of accom- 
The Zenith P^ s ^ ment so apparently without limit. During 
of this period, besides -writing David Copper field, he 
His Fame ^ d rama ti c and editorial work of a degree of ex¬ 
cellence sufficient in itself to have established his reputation as 
a man of infinite versatility, if not of genius. In 1847, be be¬ 
came manager of a company of amateur actors that presented 
Jonson’s comedy, Every Man in His Humour, at Manchester 
and Liverpool. Many other dramatic performances followed. 
The Merry Wives of Windsor, in which Dickens played the 
part of Shallow, was given at Manchester, Liverpool, Bir¬ 
mingham, Edinburgh, and Glasgow. Between 1847 and 1852 
“The Splendid Strollers,” as they called themselves, became, 
under Dickens'® efficient training, really famous. In 1852, 
they presented a farce entitled Mr. Nightingale's Diary, 
composed by Dickens and Lemon, at the London residence of 
the Duke of Devonshire, before Queen Victoria and the Prince 


/ 


INTRODUCTION 11 

Consort. David Copperfield appeared between May, 1849 
and November, 1850. Unlike many great authors—Words¬ 
worth, for example—Dickens was able to estimate his own 
work justly. David Copperfield he always considered his 
best book; and most critics agree that in many respects it is 
the most satisfactory of his novels. While David Copper- 
field was in progress, Dickens carried out a plan, which he had 
long had under consideration, of editing a weekly periodical. 
The first number of Household Words came out March 30 ; 
1849. Thereafter, he devoted an immense amount of energy 
to this journal and its successor, All the Year Round. 

But the strain was beginning to tell upon him; and be¬ 
reavement added its weight to a heart already weary. Hie 
beloved elder sister Fannie had died in 1848; his father fol¬ 
lowed her in 1851; and his daughter Dora, in the same year. 
Surely he must have thought, in the pathetic words of one 
of the characters in the novel upon which he was then en¬ 
gaged, “Bleak House is thinning fast.” It was in con¬ 
nection wfith the writing of Bleak House that the first signs 
of overstrain appeared. “Hypochondriacal whisperings tell 
me,” he wrote, “that I am rather overworked. The spring 
does not seem to fly back again directly, as it always did when 
I put my own work aside, and had nothing else to do.” When 
the book was finally finished he suffered what he described 
as “a fearful reaction and prostration of laziness.” Yet w r ith a 
heroism only less admirable than that of Scott, he spurred his 
flagging energies to renewed exertions. 

In order to provide for his children in a more substantial 
way than he had hitherto been able to, Dickens, 
mbne • undertook a series of public readings. 

Readings ’ A i i i 

His decision to make the venture was doubtless 
strengthened by two contributory causes: his growing nervous 


12 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


restlessness, consequent upon failing health; and domestic 
worries. The latter culminated in 1858, when he and his wife 
separated by common consent. Though many unsupported 
allegations have been made against Dickens in connection 
with this unhappy affair, there is no reason to question the 
truth of his own statement in private letters. “Poor Cath¬ 
erine and I,” he wrote, “are not made for each other, and 
there is no help for it. It is not only that she makes me 
uneasy and unhappy, but that I make her so too, and much 
more so. 55 “I have now no relief but in action,” he wrote in 
1857; “I am become incapable of rest.” So the public read¬ 
ings were undertaken. 

Of the readings there were four series, given in 1858-9, in 
1861-3, in 1866-7, and in 1868-70. Into the preparation of 
them Dickens threw himself with characteristic energy. No 
actor ever worked harder to perfect himself in his art than did 
Dickens. How great his success was may be gathered from 
the testimony of those who heard him. “A whole tragic, 
comic, heroic, theatre visible, performing under one hat” is the 
impression he made upon Carlyle; and his receipts, judged by 
the standards of forty years ago, were enormous. In America, 
to which he paid a second visit in the winter of 1867, giving 
readings in the principal eastern cities, he made nearly 
twenty thousand pounds.* 

* George William Curtis, who heard him in New York in 1867, 
thus describes his reading: 

Every character was individualized by the voice and a slight 
change of expression. But the reader stood perfectly still, and 
the instant transition of the voice from the dramatic to the descrip¬ 
tive tone was unfailing and extraordinary. Every character was 
indicated with the same felicity. Of course the image in the read¬ 
er’s mind must be considered in estimating the effect. The 
reader does not create the character, the writer has done that; and 
now he refreshes it into unwonted vividness, as when a wet sponge 
is passed over an old picture. As the reading advances, the spell 
becomes more entrancing. The mind and heart answer instantly tG 



INTRODUCTION 


13 


But no increase of fame or fortune could compensate for the 
loss of health which the strain of these readings entailed. 

The year 1865 had been the beginning of the end. 

Death . . . . . . & ... & _ _ . 

A tram in winch he was travelling had been 
wrecked, with a loss of many lives. From the nervous shock 
then experienced he never recovered. His daughter tells us 
thc*t often when they were travelling home from London, he 
would “suddenly fall into a paroxysm of fear, tremble all over, 
clutch the arms of the railway carriage, large beads of per¬ 
spiration standing on his face, and suffer agonies of terror.” 
In 1867 he suffered from an inflammation of the left foot, fol¬ 
lowed by erysipelas. While in America in that year, he con¬ 
tracted a severe cold, which he was unable to throw off while 
he remained in the country. “Climate, distance, catarrh, trav¬ 
elling, and hard work,” as he said, told heavily upon him; and, 
to add to his sufferings, insomnia visited him with all its hor¬ 
rors. Had he rested on his return to England, the end might 
have been deferred, but he w T orked hard at his editorial duties, 
his writing, and even gave a fourth series of twelve public 
readings in London. On Wednesday June 8, 1870, after a 
busy day of writing, he fell to the floor in an apoplectic fit and 
died on the following day without regaining consciousness. 

In his will, dated May 12, 1869, he had been explicit in his 
directions regarding his funeral. “I emphatically direct,” 
he said, “that I be buried in an inexpensive, unostentatious, 
and strictly private manner; that no public announcement be 
made of the time or place of my burial; that at the utmost not 

every tone and look of the reader. In a passionate outburst, as 
in Bob Cratchit’s wail for his lost little boy, or in Scrooge’s prayer 
to be allowed to repent, the whole scene lives and throbs before 
you. And when in the great trial of Bardell against Pickwick, 
the thick, fat voice of the elder Weller wheezes from the gallery, 
“Put it down with a wee, me Lord, put it down with a wee,” you 
turn to look for the gallery and behold the benevolent parent. 


14 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


more than three plain mourning coaches be employed, and 
that those who attend my funeral wear no scarf, cloak, black 
bow, long hat-band, or other such revolting ab- 

Burial surdity. I direct that my name be inscribed in 
plain English letters on my tomb without the addition of Mr. 
or ‘Esquire.’ I conjure my friends on no account to make 
me the subject of any monument, memorial, or testimonial 
whatever. I rest my claims to the remembrance of my coun¬ 
try upon my published works, and to the remembrance of my 
friends upon their experience of me in addition thereto.” 
Nevertheless, he was buried, though unostentatiously, in 
Westminster Abbey. Dean Stanley preached Ms funeral 
sermon. Of Dickens’s ten children seven survived him; none 
of them became in any way famous. 

Dickens’s personal appearance was interesting rather than 
particularly impressive. More than once in later life he was 

Personal compared, because of his small, wiry frame and 
Appearance florid face, to a bronzed sea captain. Carlyle in 
a letter to John Carlyle, thus describes his appearance in 1840: 

He is a fine little fellow—Boz, I think. Clear blue, intelligent 
eyes, eyebrows that he arches amazingly. Large protrusive, 
rather loose mouth, a face of most extreme mobility , which he 
shuttles about—eyebrows, eyes, mouth and all—in a very singu¬ 
lar manner while speaking. Surmount this with a loose coil of 
common-colored hair, and set it on a small compact figure, very 
small, and dressed a la D’Orsay rather than well—this is Pick¬ 
wick For the rest, a quiet, shrewd-looking little fellow, who 
seems to guess pretty well what he is and what others are. 

About his dress and manner there seems always to have 
been a trace, perhaps more than a trace, of the histrionic., His 
taste in dress was questionable. He liked glittering jewelry, 
showy neckwear, and gay waistcoats. But though Dickens, 
like Disraeli and Bulwer, was something of a fop, it would be 
a mistake to infer that in his dress or manners he was in any 
way grotesque. John Lothrop Motley, in a letter to his 




INTRODUCTION 


15 ' 


mother dated March 15, 1861, gives the following account of 
a meeting with Dickens in London: 

He looks about the age of Longfellow. . . . His features 

are good, and the nose rather high, the eyes largish, greyish and 
very expressive. He wears a moustache and beard and dresses at 
dinner in exactly the same uniform which every man in London 
or the civilized world is bound to wear, as much as the inmates of 
a penitentiary are restricted to theirs. I mention this because I 
had heard that he was odd and extravagant in his costume. 

What impressed Dickens’s contemporaries as his dominant 
personal characteristic was his tremendous physical vitality. 
It seemed inexhaustible. Whether at work or at play, he 
used his marvelous store of nervous energy like a spend¬ 
thrift. Hawthorne, in The English Note Book , tells a story 
he heard in England of a night Dickens spent in Liverpool. 
In the evening he acted in farce, spent the rest of the night 
making speeches and feasting; and ended at seven o’clock 
in the morning by jumping leapfrog over the backs of the 
whole company. Goldsmith’s famous couplet: 

To husband out life's taper at the close, 

And keep the flame from wasting by repose 

had no meaning for him. Instead of husbanding his taper, 
he exultingly burned the candle at both ends—with the usual 
result. He died at fifty-eight, while many men of that age, 
who at the beginning had possessed far less physical vitality 
than he, continued for years to enjoy a healthy old age. 

Dickens’s character was wdiat his writings would lead us to 
expect. The qualities of sincerity, simplicity, and 
kindliness are apparent in all he said and did. 
Whatever mistakes Dickens made, they were never such 
as to cast a shadow of suspicion upon his moral character. 
Errors of judgment there were; moral lapses there were none. 
Well could Carlyle write of him on hearing of his death: 


16 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


It is almost thirty years since my acquaintance with him be¬ 
gan ; and on my side, I may say, every new meeting ripened it 
into more and more clear discernment of his rare and great worth 
as a brother man: a most cordial, sincere, clear-sighted, quietly 
decisive, just and loving man: till at length he had grown to such 
a recognition with me as I have rarely had for any man of my 
time. 

To the last Dickens remained a simple man. Few men 
could be so universally beloved and so lionized, and yet retain, 
as he did, the essential modesty of his character. A dislike 
of all display was deeply rooted in him. He might have sat 
in Parliament. Repeatedly, in answer to solicitations to I 
allow himself to become a candidate, he replied that he felt 
he could be far more usefully employed in his chosen sphere of 
action than he could hope to be in the House of Commons. 

To Dickens’s simplicity of nature his kindliness was closely 
allied. It was particularly to “our poor relations” the animals, 
and to young children that his heart went out. He was not an 
effusive man, but there was no half-heartedness in his likings. 
Only one kind of person, besides the hypocrite, he thoroughly 
hated; this was the indifferent. “I give my heart,” he said, 
“to very few people; but I would sooner love the most im¬ 
placable man in the world than a careless one, who, if my 
place were empty to-morrow, would rub on and never miss 
me.” 


ii 

dickens’s novels 

Dickens’s works fill thirty-six volumes in the best English 
edition; in the best American edition, twenty-nine volumes. 
Of these, one volume contains the plays, poems, and miscella¬ 
nies ; the rest is fiction. The plays, from a literary standpoint, 
scarcely call for discussion; Dickens’s literary reputation in 




INTRODUCTION 


17 


I* 

no sense rests upon them. Upon the poems a brief comment 
will suffice. Dickens wrote much less verse than did Thack¬ 
eray, and what he did write does not approach in merit some 
half dozen of Thackeray’s poems. The best known of Dick¬ 
ens’s is 4 ‘The Ivy Green” from the sixth chapter of Pickwick. 
The lines are exquisitely graceful, even though, as critics have 
pointed out, the emotion they express is both commonplace 
and sentimental. 

It is with the novels that we are chiefly concerned. Into 
them Dickens put himself—his sincerity, his humor, jd his 
broad sympathy. 

Sincerity, Carlyle has pointed out, is the measure of a great 
man’s worth. Sincere Dickens certainly was, in that what he 

Author’s wrote was a true expression of himself. Thus, the 
personality s pi r it of hopef ulness that pervades all his books was 

reflected 

in his not an assumed optimism, but was temperamental. 

writing He believed in men and in a better future for society. 
In contrast to his great rival Thackeray, who looks upon life 
only with kindly tolerance, and in contrast to George Eliot, 
who with her stern theory of retribution, regards humanity 
with profound pity, never with confident hope, Dickens is 
strikingly hopeful. This hopefulness he shows in his treat¬ 
ment of his characters. His heroes are all taken from the 
class of society commonly thought to be composed only of the 
vulgar and the commonplace. Yet his books are saved from 
the sordidness that might have resulted from dealing with 
such material by the keenness of his sympathy with all that 
is best and most generous in men, rich or poor. Not only 
Dickens’s excellencies but his defects, as well, were in a sense 
sincere. That is, they were not the result of conscious affec¬ 
tation, but of certain inborn qualities of the man himself. 
Take for example the theatrical taint which is so persistent a 
blemish upon his work. Even this had its origin in a certain 


18 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


innate fondness for stage effects, which showed itself also in 
his dress and manner, and which contributed in no small 
degree to his success as an actor and as a reader. 

Yet it is upon his fame as a humorist that Dickens’s most 
obvious claim to permanence rests. His most characteristic 
humor had its origin in pure gaiety of heart. Dickens has 
been called the prince of clowns, and the title is apt enough 
if only we bear in mind that even in his most farcical drollery 
he reveals an almost supernatural shrewdness of observation. 
If we were to accept Doctor Johnson’s very inadequate state¬ 
ment, and say tha bumor is “grotesque imagery” and “gro¬ 
tesque” is “distorted ox %ure: unnatural,” we should have 
to assign to Dickens a place among English humorists higher 
than that of Sterne or Goldsmith. Probably none of us would 
be willing to accept Johnson’s assertion unqualifiedly, or to 
rank Dickens so high as such a test would warrant. Yet 
Doctor Johnson’s definition, though manifestly inadequate, 
well describes the essential feature of Dickens’s humor. Its 
essence is grotesque exaggeration. Every one of his humor¬ 
ous characters is the personification of some humorous 
characteristic, the exaggerated embodiment of some whimsical 
trait. To every reader of Dickens, Barkis is always “willin,” 
Mark Tapley always jolly, Pecksniff always hypocritical, and 
Micawber always waiting for something to turn up. These 
humorous creations have often been called caricatures. Noth¬ 
ing could be more misleading. Caricature never gives the 
impression of reality; and in the reality of Dickens’s characters 
it is hard to disbelieve. Far easier is it to doubt that Miles 
Standish and Captain John Smith actually lived and per¬ 
formed the exploits attributed to them than to doubt that 
Dick Swiveller really hung up his coat daily in the dingy 
office of Sampson Brass in Bevis Marks or that Mr. Wack- 
ford Squeers had his local habitat in Yorkshire. They 



INTRODUCTION 


IV 

seem so alive because their drollery is the spontaneous over¬ 
flow of Dickens’s animal spirits. We have his own written 
testimony to the “inexpressible enjoyment” he found in every 
kind of fun. It is a matter for regret that as Dickens grew 
older, this spontaneous humor gradually disappeared, yielding 
place to one which though still delightful, was full of a more 
conscious art. It is significant also that as Dickens’s health 
declined, his humor diminished, till, in the somber stories of 
his last years, it is either wholly absent or is present only in 
such grotesque forms as we find in A Tale of Two Cities. 

In the breadth of his sympathy Dickens is more than cath¬ 
olic. Nothing is more striking than the contrast between his 
intellectual limitations and the unlimited scope of 

sympathy sympathies. If we go to Dickens’s books foi 
light on such problems as “man’s destiny, and God’s ways 
with him here on the earth,” we shall be disappointed. In 
him the reasoning faculty seems almost nonexistent. Un¬ 
like Thackeray and George Eliot, he seldom moralizes, and 
when he does, his reflections are commonplace, or even 
childish. There was nothing commonplace, however, about 
his sympathetic imagination. In its inclusiveness it resembles 
that of Sterne and of Goldsmith, the influence of whom 
upon Dickens was considerable. Indeed, Uncle Toby and 
Corporal Trim are the prototypes of those characters in 
Dickens’s novels whose grotesque goodness has endeared 
them to the English speaking race. 

And to his unlimited sympathy with human sorrow we 
may trace his customary didac tjc~purpose. Dickens believed 
as firmly as did Matthew Arnold that art to be great must 
be moral. He believed that the influence of his. books 
should be wholesome and uplifting. From the duty of a 
novelist as he conceived it, to teach a moral lesson, he never 
departed. One is sometimes tempted to wish he had been 


20 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


content to be less didactic, for his desire to point a moral 
often led him to distribute the rewards and punishments in his 
stories too arbitrarily to be quite consistent with the facts of 
life. Goodness always triumphs visibly over evil in his novels, 
whereas in real life the triumph is often hidden or deferred. 
In Dickens’s novels, to be selfish and unkind was to be marked 
for punishment always severe and usually sensational. 
Most readers will confess to a lurking desire to see the villain 
unmasked; and Dickens never disappoints them. Some¬ 
times, indeed, he gives them more than they could reasonably 
ask. We can enjoy seeing Pecksniff unmasked before a 
jubilant company; but Krook’s end by spontaneous com¬ 
bustion* is a violation, not only of probability, but of good 
taste. Yet, though his conception of the interdependence of . 
art and morals was narrow, it was nevertheless a dignified 
ideal. His mission in life, as he understood it, was to give 
material form to the better dreams of ordinary men as guides 
to right living, to embody in form and substance the ideals of 
love, purity, and unselfishness by w T hich the great multitude of 
the relatively uneducated seek to guide their lives aright. To 
this mission he was unfalteringly true. Often his moral pur¬ 
pose led him to become the champion of some definite reform. 
Hence it is that several of his novels, like Nicholas Nichlehy 
and Bleak House are in essence arguments written wfith set 
purpose to improve conditions in the private school, the 
debtors’ prison, or the court of chancery. To the last, Dick¬ 
ens remained the unsalaried advocate of the poor and the 
oppressed. To the last his interest was centered, not primarily 
in scenes or incidents, but in people. 


* Bleak House, Chap. XXII. 




INTRODUCTION 


21 


We are not surprised, therefore, to find that all but two 
of Dickens’s novels (Barnaby Rudge and A Tale dj Two 
Cities) are novels of character rather than novels of plot, 
character!- However intricate the plot, the story is told not 
zation so much for its own sake as to exhibit the characters. 

Like Fielding and Balzac, he delighted to vrork with large 
canvasses crowded with figures. Nor is it surprising, either^ 
that his highest achievement should have been in humorous 
characterization. No English writer, with the exception of 
Shakespeare, has drawn so many figures that are “household 
words.” Among all these familiar figures, the best undoubt¬ 
edly are the satirically humorous portraits. And this is true 
in spite of the charge of exaggeration that has been brought 
against them. Exaggerated they are, but they are comedy 
characters, and exaggeration is an essential feature of comedy. 
Falstaff or Sarah Gamp portrayed with exact truth would 
cease to be comic. The latter, for example, would become 
merely disgusting, a drunken, thieving, dishevelled old woman. 
Yet Dickens by some subtle art, not taking away her vulgarity, 
which was essential to the portrait, but softening the more 
repellant features and heightening certain others, has made 
her one of the most innocently mirth-provoking characters in 
all English fiction. A list of these satirically comic characters 
would be indeed along one. Among the greatest are Mr. 
Micawber, Dick Swdveller, Mr. Mantalini, Captain Cuttle, 
and Mr. Pecksniff. 

In presenting these characters Dickens’s method scarcely 
varied. He describes them all minutely from the outside. 
Seldom does he attempt to analyze their mental processes; 
and when he does attempt it, he usually adds little to our 
understanding of the character. Rarely does he portray a 
character as developing under the influence of the interaction 
0 ; other characters upon it, or as the result of circumstance. 


22 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Sudden changes there are, to be sure; but they are such con¬ 
versions as we see on the stage, violent transformations which 
do not ring true. For the most part, however, his people 
remain unchanged from the beginning to the end of the book 
in which they figure. The strength of his character-drawing 
comes from the fact that his own conception of his characters 
was a visual one. By sheer force of visible detail he compels 
us to believe in their reality and he makes us see them only 
less vividly than he had done. 

And this he could do whenever he drew upon the manifold 
stores of his own experience of common, everyday life. When¬ 
ever he limited himself to the portrayal of such types as he 
had known, he was successful. But in his most ambitious 
attempts at character portrayal,—when he tried to depict 
men and women as possessed by some elemental passion, 
such as love, pride, or anger,—he frequently failed. It is in 
Mr. Dombey, in Bradley Headstone, and in Miss Havisham 
that his deficiency is most lamentable. In his villains, espe¬ 
cially, weakness is often apparent. Too often they are stage 
villians who hiss threats through clenched teeth, but about 
A whom we really know and care very little. Theatricality was 
undoubtedly Dickens’s besetting sin. 

Its taint is evident in his characterization; but it is even 
more manifest in his plots. Plot was Dickens’s weak point. 

A carefully thought-out plan was irksome to him 
and hampered the free expression of his genius. 
As a consequence, most of his stories were not composed but 
improvised. This accounts for the fact that most of them are 
episodic narratives, a succession of scenes more or less closely 
connected. It will be remembered that these novels appeared 
in monthly parts, and that the author began publishing when 
only three or four parts had been completed. Under such con¬ 
ditions it was difficult, for Dickens well-nigh impossible, to see 


INTRODUCTION 


23 


■ s a finished whole the work upon w T hich he was er gaged. We 
know that he sometimes changed the course of a story to suit 
a fickle public taste. Thus he sent Martin Chuzzlewit to 
America, not because he had planned at the outset to do so, 
but because a declining sale showed that the monthly install¬ 
ments were not proving so attractive as usual. His method 
of writing seems in general to have been a hand-to-mouth one. 
He had very clearly in mind the personages that were to 
figure in the story. We know from his own words that his 
characters, with their external personal peculiarities and their 
: tricks of expression, were from the beginning visible and aud¬ 
ible to him. He had also, no doubt, a fairly well formulated 
idea of what would be their ultimate fate. But for the con¬ 
duct of the story he depended mainly upon the inspiration of 
I the moment, confident that somewhere in the chapter he was 
writing something would happen. Something amusing or in- 
! teresting usually did happen. So, on the whole, it is perhaps 
i just as well that Dickens did not oftener bind himself to any 
preconceived plot. When he did, he almost invariably be¬ 
came melodramatic, bringing to the novel the methods of 
the drama, and introducing stage effects w T hich might have 
been convincing in the theatre, but which, without the lime¬ 
light, produce an impression of unreality. 

Dickens’s abuse of dramatic methods shows itself markedly 
in his excessive use of the device of coincidence. This flaw is 
most apparent in his more carefully constructed books, like 
Bleak House, where the plot turns upon a coincidence of the 
most surprising kind. Lady Dedlock’s affairs have reached 
a crisis, Tulkinghorn having completed his case and threat¬ 
ened her with disclosure. At this psychological moment he 
is shot through the heart by Mademoiselle Hortense, Lady 
Dedlock’s former maid, to settle a purely personal grudge of 
long standing. But the failure is also evident in those scenes 




24 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


in which Dickens essayed to rise to heights of tragic passion- 
A case in point is the murder of Nancy in Oliver Twist. 

The house-breaker freed one arm, and grasped his pistol, . 
and he beat it twice with all the force he could summon, upon the 
upturned face that almost touched his own. 

She staggered and fell: nearly blinded with the blood that raineu 
down from a deep gash in her forehead; but raising herself with 
difficulty, on her knees, drew from her bosom a white handker 
chief—and holding it up, in her folded hands, as high toward 
Heaven as her feeble strength would allow, breathed one prayer foi 
mercy to her Maker. 

It was a ghastly figure to look upon. The murderer staggering 
backward to the wall, and shutting out the sight with his hand 
seized a heavy club and struck her down. 

Dickens’s strength and weakness are nowhere better show T n 
The bare recital of the incident in all its grotesque horror i 
pitiful and even terrible; but the attitude and the prayer art 
untrue to life and are obviously a sacrifice to tawdry stage 
effects. 

Another pretty constant feature of Dickens’s plot construc¬ 
tion is his use of contrast. Possibly this also is a form of his | 
abuse of dramatic method, contrast being one of the most 
common devices for producing dramatic effects. Possibly he 
acquired a taste for it by his boyish reading of Goldsmith’s 
Vicar of Wakefield, which furnishes so many instances of its ' 
use and abuse. At all events Dickens’s use of it became a 
mannerism. Often he protrayed contrastin'g characters, as ■ 
in his first published story, “A Dinner at Poplar Walk;” 
more often he opposed scenes and incidents, alternating humor 
and pathos, gaiety and gloom, so regularly that the practised 
reader of his novels ma) be able to foretell with considerable 
certainty the emotional tone of the passage that will follow 
the one he is at the moment reading. In A Christmas Carol , 
for example, we have antithetically related scenes from begin¬ 
ning to end. The story is really a mere succession of effect¬ 
ively contrasted scenes; Dickens himself called it a “whimsical 



INTRODUCTION 


25 

kind of masque/’ First we are shown Ebenezei Scrooge at his 
worst, “a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, 
covetous oid sinner.” Next we are shown in swift succession 
three scenes from Scrooge’s past life. These scenes from his 
childhood, youth, and early manhood serve to emphasize his 
present state of moral degradation and also to mark the stages 
• of his progressive deterioration. The third section shows us 
^two companion pictures; two poor cottages, each ablaze with 
light and filled with Christmas jollity. Here the distinction 
Sis between Scrooge’s sad and lonely selfishness and the cheer¬ 
fulness that comes from living for others. Opposed to these 
two pictures of good cheer, we have in the fourth section a 
“gloomy death-bed scene, and a neglected grave. The effect 
of this upon Scrooge is to produce in him a complete metamor¬ 
phosis. In short he becomes “as good a friend, as good a 
'master, and as good a man as the good old city knew.” 

Dickens’s prose style, though full of mannerisms, is clear 
vigorous, and often felicitous. He was a careful workman; 

slovenly English was his abomination. Neither hur- 
, ry nor weariness could ever induce him to give to 

the public such careless and unfinished work as Scott some¬ 
times did. At its best his pro§e is characterized by both 
smoothness and the strength that comes from vivacious 
energy. It is excellent in passages, where description is 
mingled with narrative; in the portrayal of rapid journeys 
like the pursuit of Lady Dedlock in Bleak House* or the 
flight from Paris in the end of A Tale of Two Cities ; or in 
such a dynamic description as that of the Gordon rioters in 
Barnaby Rudge ,f where the mob is seen pouring in drunken 
fury through the streets of London. Scarcely less admirable 
as examples of style are the many passages in which he de« 


* Chap. LVII and LIX. 


tChap. L. 



26 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


scribes landscapes and interiors to convey an impression of 
gaiety or terror. The latter emotion colors every detail of 
the two contrasting pictures in the first chapter of Little l)or- 
rit. First we are shown the city of Marseilles broiling in the 
sun; staring white houses, staring tracts of arid road, staring 
hills from which all verdure had been burnt away, parched 
trees, vines drooping in the quivering air, the very dust 
scorched brown. Then with our eyes still blinded by the 
glare, we are instantly shown a totally different picture, yet 
one in which the emotional coloring is exactly the same. I 
Here it is the city prison, dark and damp; the iron rusty, the 1 
wood rotten, the air faint. In both passages the scene is I 
so described that each detail becomes symbolic, instinct J 
with a meaning which the ordinary observer would never 
have suspected. This power of describing inanimate things 
so that they seem, if not alive, at least to be possessed of emo¬ 
tional significance, is one of Dickens’s most marked character- I 
istics. He said of himself “I think it is my infirmity to fancy 
or perceive relations in things which are not apparent gener- i 
ally.” To him the analogy between nature and human.life 
seemed very close. As a result, we constantly find natural 
objects described in terms which we should ordinarily expect I 
to see applied exclusively to human life. Thus, in the passage 
above cited we are told that everything in Marseilles and about 
Marseilles had stared at the fervid sky, and been stared at in 
return, until a staring habit had become universal there. 
Again, in the first chapter of Bleak House, where Dickens de¬ 
scribes a foggy afternoon in London, we are told that the gas, 
lighted two hours before the usual time, “has a haggard and 
unwiffing look.” Even the revolving chimney-pots, in the 
famous description of Todger’s “Commercial Boarding Estab¬ 
lis hment”* seemed to be turning gravely to each other every 
* Martin Chuzz.^it, Chap. IX. 




INTRODUCTION 


27 


now and then, and whispering the results of their separate 
observation of what was going on below.” 

In humorous description Dickens’s style is . nearly always 
excellent. It is so in the boisterous, farcical gaiety of his 
earlier work, as in the account of Mr. Bob Sawyer’s bachelor 
party,* where the humor is hardly more than an ebullition of 
youthful high spirits. It is so, also, in the less rollicking fun 
of his maturer work, where the humor is more thoughtful and 
more akin to satire, as in the exquisitely humorous account of 
Mr. Pecksniff’s reception of the new pupil.f 

His style is least admirable in his reflective moods. Then 
it is that his mannerisms become most apparent. The worst 
of them is the result of his evident inability to distinguish 
clearly between the rhythm suited to prose and that which 
is proper to verse. At times the lines need but to be arranged 
in the form of stanzas to pass muster as fairly respectable 
blank verse written in irregular metre such as Southey some¬ 
times used. A passage from The Old Curiosity Shop has 
actually been arranged in this way, the only changes made 
being the omission of two words, “in” and “its,” and the 
substitution of “E’en” for “even,” and “grandames” foi 
“grandmothers.” 

And now the bell—the bell 

She had so often heard by night and day, 

And listened to with solemn pleasure, 

E’en as a living voice— 

Rung its remorseless toll for her, 

So "young, so beautiful, and good. 

Decrepit age and vigorous life, 

And blooming youth and helpless infancy 
Poured forth—on crutches, in the pride of strength 
And health, in the full blush 

* Pickwick Papers, Chap. XXXI. 
t Martin Chuzzlewit , Chap. V. 



28 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 




Of promise, the mere dawn of life— 

To gather round her tomb. Old men were there 
Whose eyes were dim 
And senses failing, 

Grandames who might have died ten years ago 
And still been old—the deaf, the blind, the lame: 

The living dead in many shapes and forms, 

To see the closing of this early grave. 

What was the death it would shut in, 

To that which still could crawl and creep above it! 

Along the crowded path they bore her now; 

Pure as the new-fallen snow 
That covered it; whose day on earth 
Had been as fleeting. 

Under that porch, where she had sat when Heaven 
In mercy brought her to that peaceful spot, 

She passed again, and the old church 
Received her in its quiet shade. 

Not even the fact that the foregoing passage is based on an 
event that is genuinely pathetic, saves the cadenced sentences 
from being classed as sonorous declamation. 

There is, however, in Dickens’s prose a poetic element quite 
independent of such meretricious ornament as metre. In the 
unstudied expression of true pathos he often, without trans¬ 
gressing the limitations of proper prose rhythm, attained to 
a form of expression truly lyrical in its intensity. A case in 
point is the passage in A Christmas Carol* where Bob Cratchit 
mourns the death of Tiny Tim. 

In considering Dickens’s place in English fiction .we must 
remember that literary history, like other history, repeats 
itself. Whenever fiction, under the influence of a changing 
public sentiment, begins to treat human life no longer in the 
epic manner, but with an attempt to portray analytically the 


*Chap. IV. 





INTRODUCTION 


29 


heart and the affections, it does not stop short of senti¬ 
mentalism. And from such sentimentalism a revolt inev¬ 
itably follows. So it was in the eighteenth century; 

nace so it was again in the nineteenth. As Defoe’s 

Fiction novels of incident gave place in Richardson, to a 
minute study of the human heart and this to the 
robust realism of Fielding; so a century later the romances of 
Scott yielded place in popular favor to Dickens’s studies of 
the human heart (studies which often led him into senti¬ 
mentalism), and these in turn were followed by the sturdy 
realism of Thackeray. In general, then, it may be said that 
Dickens’s place in English fiction of the nineteenth century 
corresponds to that of Richardson in the fiction of the preced¬ 
ing one. Speaking more in detail we may say that Dickens 
is identified with the novel of philanthropic purpose. He 
became a literary philanthropist, the advocate of the poor 
and the oppressed. Dickens’s purpose was then a two-fold 
one,—to portray the heart and the affections, and to bring 
about reforms. 

It is not surprising that with such a divided aim he should 
have combined two distinctly different artistic methods. This 
he actually did, for in his methods he was both a realist and 
an idealist. He was a realist in that he sometimes presented 
his material in its naked reality, depicting the commonplace, 
and if need be the unpleasant, in his effort to portray life as 
he saw it. He was an idealist in that sometimes he presents 
his material only after he has excluded from it all that might 
offend the esthetic judgment of the reader, protraying nature 
and human life not necessarily as it is, but as it might be. 
In his metfiod of presenting the scenes through which his 
characters moved he was a realist; in his method of portraying 
the characters themselves he was an idealist. In other words, 
he puts before us idealized characters in realistic situations. 



30 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


In the preface to Oliver Twist, Dickens tells us, “I saw no 
reason, when I wrote this book, why the dregs of life (so long 
as their speech did not offend the ear) should not serve the 
purpose of a moral, as well as its froth and cream. . . . . 

It appeared to me that to draw a knot of such associates in 
crime as really did exist; to paint them—in all the squalid 
misery of their lives—would be a service to society.” Here 
we have Dickens’s artistic creed in a nutshell. The book is 
its result in practice. Though the actual conversation of the 
London rough is not edifying, Bill Sikes, Nancy, and Charley 
Bates, who certainly belong to that genus, never once utter a 
profane or obscene word. On the other hand, “The cold, 
wet, shelterless midnight streets of London; the foul and 
frouzy dens, where vice is closely packed and lacks the room 
to turn, the haunts of hunger and disease; the shabby rags 
that scarcely hold together”—these are painted in all their 
hideous reality. 

What of Dickens’s rank as a novelist? To attempt to esti¬ 
mate absolutely the relative value of different authors, even 
those in the same general class, is both an ungracious and a 
thankless task. One sometimes hears it said that we outgrow 
Dickens. If to outgrow him means that as we grow older we 
find it more difficult to yield to the fascinating spell of the 
creator of such characters as Micawber and Mrs. Nickleby; if 
it means that we find it harder with advancing years to enter 
into the joys and sorrows of childhood; if to outgrow him 
means to become insensible to the glory of self-sacrifice such 
as Sydney Carton’s, then to say “I have outgrown Dickens” 
is indeed a humiliating confession. Yet, though the charm 
of Dickens is a perennial one that age cannot wither nor cus¬ 
tom stale, our youthful, unreasoning admiration of him may 
change in time to a more thoughtful recognition of his limita¬ 
tions as well as of his excellencies. George Eliot’s clairvoy- 



INTRODUCTION 


31 


ance that divines the interior play of thought and feeling was 
denied him. With the power of psychological analysis was 
denied him also Thackeray’s broader culture and finer taste. 
What we find in Dickens that never loses its power is an im¬ 
agination of boundless fertility, a tender sympathy with 
sorrow, a merry heart that “doeth good like a medicine,” and 
an unlimited faith in the essential goodness of human nature. 


hi 

A TALE OF TWO CITIES*. 

A Tale of Two Cities must be considered somewhat apart 
from the author’s other work, for in its design and 
Unique execut i on R involved a radical departure from 
Dickens’s usual method of writing fiction. Re¬ 
garding this difference of method, Dickens s own statement 
is too significant to omit. 


I set myself the little task of writing a picturesque story, rising 
in every chapter, with characters true to nature, but whom the 
story should express more than they should express themselves 
by dialogue. 1 mean, in other words, that I fancied a story of 
incident might be written (in place of the odious stuff that is 
written under that pretense) pounding the characters in its own 
mortar, and beating their interest out of them. 


*A Tale of Two Cities was published in All the Year Round, the 
first installment of the story appearing in the first number of that 
periodical, April 30, 1859; and ending with number thirty-one on 
November 26, following. It was also issued by Chapman and Hall 
concurrently in eight monthly parts, the first part in June, and the 
last in December. The complete book, cloth-bound, was published 
in December, 1859, at nine shillings. It was inscribed to Lord John 
Russell, “in remembrance of public services and private kind¬ 
nesses.’’ Dickens’s “American Ambassador,’ as he called his 
transatlantic publisher, paid him a thousand pounds for the privi¬ 
lege of republishing A Tale of Two Cities one day after it was issued 
in London. The original manuscript of the book is at South Ken¬ 
sington Museum. 



32 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


It is the only one of Dickens’s novels in which the emphasis 
is less upon character than upon incident, and in which the 
characters are revealed less by what they say than by what 
they do. Furthermore, it is differentiated from the author’s 
other work by the constructive art it displays. The year be¬ 
fore its publication there had appeared in the National Re¬ 
view a criticism of Dickens’s work, written by Walter Bagehob 
in which the critic had said, “In the cases in which Mr. 
Dickens has attempted to make a long connected story, or to i 
develop into scenes or incidents a plan in any degree elaborate, 
the result has been a complete failure.” As if in answer to 
this criticism, Dickens in the following year wrote A Tale of 
Two Cities. 

The suggestion for A Tale of Two Cities had occurred to 
Dickens while acting with his friends and his children in the ! 

summer of 1857 in Wilkie Collins’s play The Frozen I 

Origin A 1 

Deep. For over a year, however, nothing came of j 
the suggestion, though meantime the idea of a book based :i 
upon the French Revolution seems to have been often in his 
thoughts. In letters written during the winter of 1858 he 
speaks of several possible' titles—“One of these Days,” i 
“Buried Alive” (the latter he rejected as “too grim”), “The 
Thread of Gold,” and “The Doctor of Beauvais.” In the 
commonplace book in which he jotted down suggestions for 
future stories we find some memoranda that furnish inter¬ 
esting hints of the way the plan for the book developed in 
his mind. 


How as to a story in two periods—with a lapse of time between 
like a French drama? Titles for such a notion: Time! The 
Leaves of the Forest. Scattered Leaves. The Great Wheel 
Round and Round. Old Leaves. Long Ago. DAir Apart* 
Fallen Leaves. Five and Twenty Years. Years and Years 
Rolling Years Day after Day. Felled Trees. Memory Car¬ 
ton. Rolling Stones. Two Generations. 



INTRODUCTION 


33 


The next note evidently furnishes a hint as to his concep¬ 
tion of the character of Sydney Carton. 

The drunken?—dissipated?—What?—Lion—and his Jackal and 
Primer, stealing down to him at unwonted hours. 

Again, in another note the domestic relations of the Crunch¬ 
ers are anticipated. 

A man and his wife—or daughter—or niece. The man, a rep¬ 
robate and ruffian; the woman (or girl) with good in her, and 
with compunctions. He believes nothing, and defies everything; 
yet has suspicions always that she is “praying against” his evil 
schemes, and making them go wrong. He is very much opposed 
to this, and is always angrily harping on it. “If she must pray, 
why can’t she pray in their favour, instead of going against ’em? 
She’s always ruining me—she always is—and calls that Duty. 
There’s a religious person! Calls it Duty to fly in my facel 
Calls it Duty to go sneaking against me.” 

The book is a historical romance, one of the two that Dick¬ 
ens wrote, the other being Bamaby Rudge. As always, he 
The wrote with a moral purpose, in this case to set 

setting forth the results of social tyranny. He adhered 
to his usual practice also in aiming to present idealized 
characters in realistic situations. The background of the 
story is in the main true to fact. To make it so Dickens 
spared no pains. He is said to have asked Carlyle to lend him 
one of the books to which Carlyle had referred in his History 
of the French Revolution, and Carlyle is said to have packed 
up and sent down to Gad’s Hill all his reference volumes. 
Many of these Dickens read faithfully. In his letters he men¬ 
tions as authority for the incidents related of the Marquis a 
book printed at Amsterdam called Tableau de Paris, written by 
a man named Mercier. Rousseau he gives as authority for at 
least one incident, that of the peasant’s shutting up his house 
when he had a bit of meat; and as authority for his state¬ 
ments regarding the general impoverishment of the peas¬ 
antry, he cites the French tax-tables. The background of 


34 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


the action is shown, not only with extraordinary fidelity, 
but with marvelous vividness. The two trials of Darnay 
for treason, the one in London, the other in Paris, are typical 
of the differing tempers of the English and French people 
respectively; each combines in different ways every sort of 
interest that can enter into a state trial, and each is a master¬ 
piece of delineation. The scene in the second chapter of 
the third book is no less great in a different way. Here we 
are shown in one swift glimpse as by a flashlight the Paris mob 
maddened with wine and with the lust for a vengeance long 
deferred. The whole atmosphere of the picture seems, Dick¬ 
ens says, to be “gore and fire/’ To find its equal for grotesque 
horror, at once fascinating and terrifying, one must turn to 
certain scenes in the romances of Victor Hugo. 

But though Dickens was careful to make the background 
of the romance vivid as well as true to fact, he did not, like so 
Tlie many modern writers of historical novels, attempt 
Characters to add to the interest of the story by introducing 
into it historical personages. For the characterization he 
depended upon his own sympathetic imagination working 
with the material supplied by his acute observation of con¬ 
temporary life. In the hero, Sydney Carton, Dickens at¬ 
tempted for the first time to indicate progressive development 
in a tragic character. He partly succeeded. Carton is not 
represented as reaching the lofty heights of self-denial at a 
single bound. The progress of his attainment is a long one, 
and would have been impossible but for the transforming 
power of an unselfish love. Some of the milestones of his as¬ 
cent from lazy self-indulgence to heroic self-sacrifice Dickens 
has clearly marked. For instance, it is not without signifi¬ 
cance that Lucie’s children learn to love and trust him; nor 
that on the last night in Paris, even while he is planning the 
great sacrifice of the morrow, he carries the little child across 





INTRODUCTION 


35 


the muddy street; nor that in the supreme hour he thinks, not 
of himself, but only of how he may comfort and strengthen the 
heart of the poor girl who is to go next before him. To those 
who affirm, as so many have done, that Dickens was incapa¬ 
ble of showing development in a character, that of Sydney 
Carton, portrayed as if to illustrate Doctor Chalmers’s great 
theme, “the expulsive power of a new affection,” is a suffici¬ 
ent answer. Yet, after all, Dickens was only partly successful. 
We easily forget Sydney Carton, impressive figure though he 
is, because he is so shadowy. He is drawn, as one critic has 
said, "with the faintest colors of the artist’s pencil. His 
qualities are didactically rather than dramatically expressed. 
Considering his prominence in the story, he seems not to have 
been sufficiently individualized. In spite of all Dickens tells 
us about him, he remains too much of an abstraction, a 
mere embodying of the virtue of self-sacrifice. What Dickens 
really succeeded in doing when he portrayed his hero—and 
in this his success was complete—was to preach one of the 
most impressive sermons ever written upon the text, “Greater 
love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for 
his friends.” 

Like Sydney Carton, the hero of the romance, Lucie Man- 
ette, the heroine, is vague and shadowy. But in her portrayal 
Dickens attempted nothing new. She closely resembles many 
of his other heroines. Like Little Dorrit and Florence Dom- 
bey she is idealized to such a degree as to seem scarcely human. 
Involuntarily one thinks of these women as small. None of 
them is possessed of such robust virtues as to suggest to our 
minds either height or buxomness. Their virtues are of the 
passive order—patience, constancy, loyalty to duty. These 
qualities, the ones that Dickens most admired in woman, he 
has freely bestowed upon Lucie Manette. For the over¬ 
idealization we can perhaps find some excuse for Dickens in 




36 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


the fact that the other novelists of the period, with- the ex¬ 
ception of George Eliot, also show in varying degrees the same 
tendency. But Lucie Manette is not merely idealized: she 
is inconsistently drawn, her words and actions at times being 
quite out of keeping with the character the author meant to 
give her—and indeed with human nature. There is neither 
appropriateness nor reality in the passage in the sixth chapter 
of the first book, when, after meeting her father, she advances 
to the front of the stage and utters a lyrical monologue em¬ 
bellished with a refrain. One suspects that Dickens himself 
was not quite satisfied with his heroine. It is difficult on any 
other supposition to account for Carton’s statement after the 
trial scene that she is a “golden-haired doll.” 

The plot is highly dramatic. Like Great Expectations, and 
far more successfully, A Tale of Two Cities was 

The Plot wr - tten a y * ew t0 possible dramatization 

of the story. Before its publication in book form, Dickens 
sent the proof sheets to Regnier of the Theatre Francais, 
asking him what he thought of its being dramatized for a 
French theatre. The public recognized its dramatic qualities 
at once. Even as early as 1859, a storm of excitement was 
aroused by its obvious resemblance in structure to Phillips’s 
play The Dead Heart which had been acted with great success 
in November of that year. Later investigation has resulted 
in acquitting Phillips of the charge of plagiarism. But the 
fact that the question arose is none the less significant in 
estimating the dramatic qualities of the romance. That the 
structure of the book is dramatic is further evidenced by the 
fact that since its publication four successful stage versions 
of it have been printed. 

It is easy to point out in the plot the features that corre¬ 
spond to the elements of a drama. The first six chapters, 
comprising the first book, correspond to the “introduction” 




INTRODUCTION 


37 


in a tragedy. Here several of the chief personages are intro¬ 
duced, each in a characteristic attitude. Mr. Lorry is talk¬ 
ing business; Madame Defarge, knitting silently, and her 
husband, in the door of the wine-shop, personifications of the 
implacable hatred engendered by oppression; Doctor Manette, 
making shoes; his daughter, forgetful of herself, trying to re¬ 
call him to an interest in life. In the same way the twentieth 
chapter of the second book, in which the lives of Carton and 
Darnay become inseparably linked, corresponds to “the tying 
of the knot in a play.” The climax, or turning point of the 
action, is found in the twenty-fourth chapter of the same book, 
where Darnay goes on his errand of mercy to Paris, whither 
he is followed by Carton and the rest. Corresponding to 
“the staying of the action” in the fourth act of a dramatic 
tragedy, we have the incident related in the sixth chapter of the 
third book, of Darnay’s first trial before the revolutionary 
tribunal and his acquittal. But this check upon the tragic 
movement of the plot is only momentary. It serves as a 
momentary pause before the action plunges forward to the 
catastrophe. The rearrest and condemnation follow im¬ 
mediately, and Carton’s supreme sacrifice is imperatively 
demanded. 

Notwithstanding the fact that in its general design and 
execution A Tale of Two Cities differs from Dickens’s other 
works and is to some extent uncharacteristic of him, it never¬ 
theless conforms to Dickens’s usual method of plot construc¬ 
tion in matters of detail. We find the usual succession 
of effective contrasts. Scenes are contrasted, as 
Contrasts when in the twent y_fi rst chapter of the second 

book the terrible scene of the taking of the Bastille is pre¬ 
ceded in the same chapter by the idyllic picture of the home 
life of an English family in the echoing corner of Soho. Not 
only scenes, but incidents are opposed. The death of Car- 


38 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


ton, to take but a single instance, is contrasted with that of 
Madame Defarge. That this was deliberately planned by the 
author, Dickens’s own letter dated March 11, 1859, is suffi¬ 
cient evidence. Speaking of the accidental death of Madame 
Defarge in her encounter with Miss Pross, he says: 

And when I use Miss Pross to bring about such a catastrophe, 

I have the positive intention of making that half-comic interven¬ 
tion a part of the desperate woman’s failure; and of opposing that 
mean death, instead of a desperate one in the streets, which she 
wouldn’t have minded, to the dignity of Carton’s. Wrong or 
' right, this was all design, and seemed to me to be in the fitness of 
things. 

Not only 1 are the scenes and the incidents contrasted, but the 
characters also. Thus the elder Evremonde, representing 
the ancien regime, is differentiated from his nephew, who 
stands for the progressive element in the aristocracy. The 
latter is in turn contrasted with Sydney Carton. Similarly 
Madame Defarge and her husband represent, the one the 
intelligence, the other the brute force, of the revolutionary 
party. The skill with which the story is interwoven Vith 
public events has been much admired. Such an interweaving 
was made possible by contrasting the characters of the story, 
each of whom was the personification of some one of the dis¬ 
cordant elements which together made up the political situa¬ 
tion. Thus, while in many of Dickens’s books his contrasts ' 
are loosely connected in an unprogressive series, in A Tale o / 
Tivo Cities the nature of the material and the purpose of the 
writer combine to make the opposing scenes part of a sym- | 
metrical plot structure. 

Here, as elsewhere, the author fails to master his inclina¬ 
tion toward theatricality. The solution of the plot is effected 
by an incident so melodramatic as to attract the attention of 
the most superficial reader. The substitution of Carton for 




INTRODUCTION 


39 


Darnay in the prison of the condemned is accomplished by a 
clever bit of stage-business. Carton stupefies Darnay by 
causing him to inhale the fumes of two dry powders, which 
Carton had purchased from an apothecary the evening before, 
and which he mixes in the presence of the prisoner. This, it 
will be remembered, was half a century before the discovery of 
anaesthesia. Moreover, it is not merely a daring anarchro- 
nism, but an utter impossibility. No chemicals are known 
which by being administered in that way would cause in¬ 
sensibility such as Darnay’s. Theoretically it might be 
possible to produce temporary insensibility by the inhalation 
of conine a volatile alkaloid extracted from the poison hem¬ 
lock. This drug was well known in the eighteenth century, 
and even in ancient times. Its effect is to cause muscular 
paralysis. Practically, however, it use would be likely to 
cause death by paralyzing not only the voluntary muscles, 
but the involuntary as well, thus stopping the heart action and 
respiration. It seems unaccountable that Dickens should 
in the climax of the plot have employed a device which trans¬ 
gressed the limits of the probable and even of the possible 
and this unnecessarily. Had he wished to avoid the awk¬ 
wardness of such a solution, he could have taken a hint from 
Dumas’s Le Chevalier de Maison Rouge, where a similar 
substitution is effected by a far less melodramatic method. 
In some way, certainly, Dickens might have avoided an artifice 
that reminds us by its theatrical cleverness of Wilkie Collins. 

One distinctive structural feature of the romance deserves 
special comment. This is the author’s use of catch-phrases 
to suggest the dominant tone of the emotions called forth by 
the various sections of the narrative. Thus the keynote of the 
first book, in which Lucie’s devoted love finally restores her 
father to reason, is the phrase “recalled to life.” In the same 


40 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


way the phrase “echoing footsteps” sounds the emotional key 
of the second book, and indeed of the romance as a whole. 
These echoing footsteps are first heard as a prophecy full of 
menace to the little group who listen in the quiet corner in 
Soho. Lucie, it is, who interprets them as prophetic of the 
footsteps of hundreds of people who are one day to come into 
their lives. The phrase again furnishes the title of a subse¬ 
quent chapter in this second book, and finally of the last chap¬ 
ter of the romance, where the footsteps at last die out forever. 
The text of the third book is a triumphant one, for Sydney 
Carton triumphs gloriously in his death. Therefore Dickens 
put into his heart, as on the eve of his final sacrifice he walked 
the dark streets, themselves symbolic of the darker way he was 
on the morrow to tread « one, the vibrant words of Him who 
said, “lam the resurrection and the life; he that belie veth in 
me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever 
liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” These phrases 
are employed sometimes as a kind of refrain, in which case 
their use may perhaps be condemned as a form of trespass 
upon the rightful domain of verse. Often, however, they are 
used without any transgression of the limits prescribed for 
prose. In the last scene of the story, that of the sacrifice, the 
refrain is used legitimately and adds dignity to a scene which 
is, almost beyond any other in Dickens’s works, pathetic and 
noble. Not disfigured by any trace of false sentlmentTSr by 
any sacrifice of prose for poetic rhythm, it exemplifies the 
genuine lyrical quality in Dickens’s style, and rises to a height 
of passionate intensity of feeling which he elsewhere seldom 
reached. 




INTRODUCTION 


41 


IV 

SUGGESTIONS FOR THE STUDY OF A TALE OF TWO CWiES 

A Tale of Two Cities offers an excellent opportunity for 
literary comparisons. Even the immature student will find 
his interest in the book immensely increased by a recognition 
of the contrast between this and Dickens’s other works, 
and by a recognition of the scarcely less obvious relation to 
the famous book from which Dickens drew so much of his 
material. A rapid reading of the book should, of course, 
precede any detailed study of it. The next step might well 
be an examination of the book the heat and glare of which is 
reflected in the romance from beginning to end—Carlyle’s 
History of the French Revolution. The teacher would do well 
to select certain parts of “this strange, eventful history” and 
assign them as outside reading. Book 2, chapter 21 of A 
Tale of Two Cities may be compared with Part I, Book 5, 
chapter 6, of Carlyle’s History for the two accounts of the 
taking of the Bastille; Book 2, chapter 22 of the romance with 
Part I, Book 5, chapter 9 of the History for the description of 
the murder of Foulon; Book 3, chapter 5 of the romance with 
Part III, Book 5, chapter 4 of the History for the dance of the 
Carmagnole. Dozens of such correspondences will readily 
suggest themselves to the teacher familiar with Carlyle s 
History. But the student will be interested to know how far 
the romance is true to fact. For the answer to such a question 
Carlyle’s History is ill adapted. The French Revolution as 
known through that remarkable book is to the French Revolu¬ 
tion known through a scholarly history, as a landscape seen 
by a vivid succession of lightning flashes is to the same land¬ 
scape seen by daylight. Let the student be referred, there, 
fore, to selected passages from some one or two of the many 


42 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


interesting yet scholarly treatises upon the Revolutionary 
period. Again, it will help to develop the student’s sense of 
relative literary values to encourage him to read some one of 
the modern romances dealing with the events of the same 
period. Of these there are many, for the period has been a 
favorite one with romancers, owing to the spectacular ele¬ 
ments contained in such a violent social upheaval. The 
comparison of any of these with Dickens’s romance cannot 
fail to increase the student’s power of literary discrimination. 

The more advanced student might reasonably be expected 
io pursue his study of literary relations somewhat further. 
To him Edward Bulwer Lytton’s Zanoni (published 1842) 
will offer an interesting analogy. The setting of the two 
romances affords an interesting parallel, for the back¬ 
ground in both cases is the “Reign of Terror.” Bulwer 
presents the situation wholly from the standpoint of those who 
were its leaders. We are admitted to the secret councils of 
Robespierre and his companions; we are present at the meet¬ 
ings of the Convention presided over by grim Rene Dumas, 
President of the Tribunal. Dickens shows us, not the leaders 
of the Revolution, but the furious populace drunk with beastly 
excitement. Which is the fitter framework for the story? 
The style, too, may be compared. The student may read 
the epilogue to Zanoni; and then, by way of contrast, the 
epilogue of A Tale of Two Cities . The one illustrates the 
power of magniloquence; the other, the power of simplicity. 

Should the student wish to go farther afield, he might read 
Le Chevalier de Maison Rouge by the elder Dumas (pro¬ 
duced 1847), and The Dead Heart by Watts Phillips (pro¬ 
duced 1859). Both dramas closely resemble in plot A Tale 
of Two Cities; and both were inspired by Bulwer’s Zanoni. 
Then he may read one of the dramatizations of A Tale o) 
Two Cities, preferably Tom Taylor’s. This was first pro- 




INTRODUCTION 


43 


duced in 1860, and was tremendously popular, the leading 
role being taken by the famous French actress, Madame 
Celeste. 

To show how far Dickens in this romance departed from 
his more usual method, the student might be required to read 
some other story by the same author. For purposes of com. 
parison a short story will serve as well as one of the novels. A 
Christmas Carol , probably the best Christmas story ever writ¬ 
ten, or The Cricket on the Hearth may be read as representa¬ 
tive of the author’s most characteristic work. The exquisite 
mingling of humor and pathos in these stories will afford an 
interesting contrast to the somber tragedy of the romance. 

Such are some of the literary relations which might be taken 
into account by the more advanced student. 

v 

A BRIEF BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR THE STUDY OF A TALE OF TWO 
CITIES 

Bagehot, Walter. Literary Studies, Vol. II. 

Bayne, Peter. Essays in Biography and Criticism. 
Cambridge Modern History, Vol. VIII. 

Carlyle. History of the French Revolution. 

Clark, J. S. A Study of English Prose Writers. 

Collier, W. F. History of English Literature. 

Craik, H. English Prose, Vol. III. 

Cross, W. L. The Development of the English Novel. 
Dickens. Works, Biographical Edition. 

Dickens. Letters (edited by his son-in-law and his eldest 
daughter). 

Fields, J. T. Yesterdays with Authors. 

Forster, J. Life of Charles Dickens. 


44 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Gardiner, Mrs. S. R. The French Revolution. 

Gissing, G. Charles Dickens, A Critical Study. 

Lang, A. Letters to Dead Authors. 

Lecky. England in the Eighteenth Century, Vol. V. 

Lowell, E. J. The Eve of The French Revolution. 

Lytton, Bulwer. Zanoni. 

Marzials, F. T. Life of Charles Dickens. 

Masson, D. British Novelists and Their Styles. 

Matthews, S. French Revolution. 

Meynell, Mrs. Alice C. Charles Dickens as a Man of Let¬ 
ters, Atlantic Monthly , January, 1903. 

Perry, Bliss. A Study of Prose Fiction, chapter 9. 

Phillips, W. The Dead Heart, Lacy’s Acting Edition of 
Plays, Vol. 82. 

Stephen, L. Dictionary of National Biography. 

Stephens, H. M. A History of the French Revolution. 

Symonds, J. A. Essays Speculative and Suggestive, Vol. II, 
p. 229. (Realism and Idealism.) 

Taine. The French Revolution. History of English Litera¬ 
ture, Book V, chapter I. 

Taylor, T. A Tale of Two Cities: A Drama in Two Acts, 
Lacy’s Acting Edition of Plays, Vol. 45. 
id, A. W. Dickens. English Men of Letters Series. 


VI 

A CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF DICKENS’S WORKS 

1836. Sketches By Boz. Illustrative of Everyday Life and 
Everyday People. Two Volumes. 

. Sunday Under Three Heads: As it is; As Sabbath 
.Bills would make it; As it might be made. By 
Timothy Sparks. 





INTRODUCTION 


45 


1836. The Strange Gentleman. A Comic Burletta in two 

acts. By Boz. 

The Village Coquettes. A Comic Opera in two acts. 
Sketches By Boz. Second Series. One Volume. 

1837. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. 

Edited by Boz. 

1838. Oliver Twist. 

Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi. (Dickens merely edited 
the biography.) 

Sketches of Young Gentlemen. 

1839. Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. 

Sketches By Boz. (This was the first complete 

edition). 

1840. Sketches of Young Couples. 

1840-41. Master Humphrey’s Clock. Three Volumes. 

(These volumes contained, besides Master Hum¬ 
phrey’s Clock, the stories of the Old Curiosity 
Shop and Barnaby Rudge.) 

1840. Old Curiosity Shop. 

1841. Barnaby Rudge. 

The Pic-nic Papers. By Various Hands. (To this 
book Dickens contributed a preface and the open¬ 
ing story, the Lamplighter.) 

1842. American Notes for General Circulation. 

1843. A Christmas Carol in Prose. 

1844. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. 

The Chimes. 

1845. The Cricket on the Hearth. 

1846. Pictures from Italy. 

The Battle of Life. 

1848. Dealings with the Firm of Dombey-and Son: Whole¬ 
sale, Retail, and for Exportation. 

The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain. 


46 A TALE OF TWO CITIES 

1850. The Personal History of David CopperfiekL 

1853. Bleak House. 

A Child’s History of England. 

1854. Hard Times. 

1857. Little Dorrit. 

1859. A Tale of Two Cities. 

1860. The Uncommercial Traveller. 

1861. Great Expectations. 

1865. Our Mutual Friend. 

1868. A Holiday Romance. George Silverman’s Expla¬ 
nation. 

1870. The Mystery of Edwin Drood. (Unfinished.) 









AUTHOR’S PREFACE 

When I was acting, with my children and friends, in Mr. 
Wilkie Collins’s drama of The Frozen Deep, I first con¬ 
ceived the main idea of this story. A strong desire was upon 
me then, to embody it in my own person; and I traced out in 
my fancy, the state of mind of which it would necessitate the 
presentation to an observant spectator, with particular care 
and interest. 

As the idea became familiar to me, it gradually shaped itself 
into its present form. Throughout its execution, it has had 
complete possession of me; I have so far verified what is done 
and suffered in these pages, as that I have certainly done and 
suffered it all myself. 

Whenever any reference (however slight) is made here to 
the condition of the French people before or during the Revo¬ 
lution, it is truly made, on the faith of trustworthy witnesses. 
It has been one of my hopes to add something to the popular 
* and picturesque means of understanding that terrible time, 
though no one can hope to add anything to the philosophy of 
Mr. Carlyle’s wonderful book. 


a 


















I 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 

IN THREE BOOKS 


BOOK THE FIRST. RECALLED TO LIFE 

CHAPTER I. 

THE PERIOD 

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the 
age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch 
of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season 01 
Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of 
hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before 
us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to 
Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, 
the period was so far like the present period, that some of 
its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good 
or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. 

There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a 
plain face, on the throne of England ; 1 there were a king with 
a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of 
France . 2 In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the 

’‘George III, and Queen Charlotte. Green, the historian, says that 
George III had a smaller mind than any English king before him save 
James II. An interesting account of him and his queen may be read m 
Thackeray’s The Four Georges. 

2 A man of sincere good-will, Louis XVI was unable, because of his total 
lack of energy, to cope with the menacing outbreak of the Revolution. His 
queen was the daughter of Maria Theresa of Austria. Her influence was 
an evil one, being exerted for the maintenance of the system of favoritism, 
and for the resistance of reforms. 


49 


5C 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things 

in general were settled for ever. j 

It was in the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred 
and seventy-five. Spiritual revelations were conceded to 
England at that favoured period, as at this. Mrs. Southcott 1 

had recently attained her five-and-twentieth blessed birthday, 

of whom a prophetic private in the Life Guards had heralded 
the sublime appearance by announcing that arrangements 
were made for the swallowing up of London and Westminster. 
Even the Cock-lane ghost 2 had been lain only a round dozen 
of years, after rapping out its messages, as the spirits of this 
very year last past (supernaturally deficient in originality) 
rapped out theirs. Mere messages in the earthly order of 
events had lately come to the English Crown and People, 
from a congress of British subjects in America: which, strange 
to relate, have proved more important to the human race I 
than any communications yet received through any of the 
chickens of the Cock-lane brood. 

France, less favoured on the whole as to matters spiritual 
than her sister of the shield and trident , 3 rolled with exceeding 
smoothness down hill, making paper money and spending it. 
Under the guidance of her Christian pastors, she entertained 
herself, besides, with such humane achievements as sentencing 
a youth to have his hands cut off, his tongue torn out with pin¬ 
cers, and his body burned alive, because he had not kneeled 

1 Joanna Southcott declared in 1792 that she was the woman driven into I 
the wilderness, the subject of the prophecy in Rev. XII. She declared her¬ 
self to be a prophetess and predicted that she was to become the mother 
of a Messiah. She died in 1814. 

2 In 1762 a story of a young woman who had become the medium of 
mysterious messages from departed spirits found general credence in Lon¬ 
don. So widespread became the belief in the supernatural quality of these 
manifestations that Doctor Johnson became interested. Accompanied by 
a clergyman, he visited Cock Lane to investigate. Both became convinced 
that the young woman was an impostor and Doctor Johnson published 
their conclusions in the Gentleman's Magazine. The whole story may be 
found in Boswell’s Life of Johnson, Vol. I, pp. 406-8. Ed. G. B. Hill, Claren 
don Press, 1887. 

3 Britannia. 









THE PERIOD 


51 


down in the rain to do honour to a dirty procession of monks 
which passed within his view, at a distance of some fifty or 
sixty yards. It is likely enough that, rooted in the woods of 
France and Norway, there were growing trees, when that 
sufferer was put to death, already marked by the Woodman, 
Fate, to come down and be sawn into boards, to make a cer¬ 
tain movable framework with a sack and a knife in it, terrible 
in history. 1 It is likely enough that in the rough outhouses of 
some tillers of the heavy lands adjacent to Paris, there were 
sheltered from the weather that very day, rude carts, be¬ 
spattered with rustic mire, snuffed about by pigs, and roosted 
in by poultry, which the Farmer, Death, had already set apart 
to be his tumbrils 2 of the Revolution. But that Woodman 
and that Farmer, though they work unceasingly, work silent¬ 
ly, and no one heard them as they went about with muffled 
tread: the rather, forasmuch as to entertain any suspicion 
that they were awake, was to be atheistical and traitorous; 

In England, there was scarcely an amount of order and pro¬ 
tection to justify much national boasting. Daring burglaries 
by armed men, and highway robberies, took place in the cap¬ 
ital itself every night; families were publicly cautioned not to 
go out of town without removing their furniture to uphol¬ 
sterers’ warehouses for security; the highwayman in the dark 
was a City tradesman in the light, and, being recognised and 
challenged by his fellow-tradesman whom he stopped in his 
character of “the Captain,” gallantly shot him through the 
head and rode away; the mail was waylaid by seven robbers, 
and the guard shot three dead, and then got shot dead himself 
by the other four, “in consequence of the failure of his am¬ 
munition:” after which the mail was robbed in peace; thal 
magnificent potentate, the Lord Mayor of London, was mad« 

1 The guillotine. 

2 These were farmers’ dump-carts used for carrying victims to tb‘ 
guillotine. 


52 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


to stand and deliver on Turnham Green, by one highwayman 
who despoiled the illustrious creature in sight of all his retinue; 
prisoners in London gaols fought battles with their turnkeys, 
and the majesty of the law fired blunderbusses in among them, 
loaded with rounds of shot and ball; thieves snipped off dia¬ 
mond crosses from the necks of noble lords at Court drawing¬ 
rooms; musketeers went into St. Giles’s, to search for con 
traband goods, and the mob fired on the musketeers, and the 
musketeers fired on the mob, and nobody thought any of these 
occurrences much out of the common way. In the midst of 
them, the hangman, ever busy and ever worse than useless, 
was in constant requisition; now, stringing up long rows of 
miscellaneous criminals; now, hanging a housebreaker on Sat¬ 
urday who had been taken on Tuesday; now, burning people 
in the hand at Newgate by the dozen, and now burning pam¬ 
phlets at the door of Westminster Hall; to-day, taking the 
life of an atrocious murderer, and to-morrow of a wretched 
pilferer who had robbed a farmer’s boy of sixpence. 1 

All these things, and a thousand like them, came to pass 
in and close upon the dear old year one thousand seven hun¬ 
dred and seventy-five. Environed by them, while the Wood¬ 
man and the Farmer worked unheeded, those two of the large 
jaws, and those other two of the plain and the fair faces, trod 
with stir enough, and carried their divine rights with a high 
hand. Thus did the year one thousand seven hundred and 
seventy-five conduct their Greatnesses, and myriads of small 
creatures—the creatures of this chronicle among the rest— 
along the roads that lay before them. 

1 On the severity of English law in the eighteenth century see W. C 
Sydney, England in the Eighteenth Century , Vol. II, Chap. xvin. 


CHAPTER II. 


THE MAIL 

It was the Dover road that lay, on a Friday night late in 
November, before the first of the persons with whom this his¬ 
tory has business. The Dover road lay, as to him, beyond 
the Dover mail, as it lumbered up Shooter’s Hill. He walked 
uphill in the mire by the side of the mail, as the rest of the 
passengers did; not because they had the least relish for walk¬ 
ing exercise, under the circumstances, but because the hill, 
and the harness, and the mud, and the mail, were all so heavy, 
that the horses had three times already come to a stop, be¬ 
sides once drawing the coach across the road, with the muti¬ 
nous intent of taking it back to Blackheath. Reins and whip 
and coachman and guard, however, in combination, had read 
that article of war which forbad a purpose otherwise strongly 
in favour of the argument, that some brute animals are 
endued with Reason; and the team had capitulated and re¬ 
turned to their duty. 

With drooping heads and tremulous tails, they mashed 
their way through the thick mud, floundering and stumbling 
between whiles, as if they were falling to pieces at the larger 
joints. As often as the driver rested them and brought them 
to a stand, with a wary “Wo-ho! so-ho then!” the near leader 
violently shook his head and everything upon it—like an un¬ 
usually emphatic horse, denying that f he coach could be got 
up the hill. Whenever the leader made this rattle, the pas¬ 
senger started, as a nervous passenger might, and was dis¬ 
turbed in mind. 

There was a steaming mist in all the hollows, and it had 
roamed in its forlornness up the hill, like an evil spirit, seeking 



54 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


rest and finding none. A clammy and intensely cold mist, 
it made its slow way through the air in ripples that visibly 
followed and overspread one another, as the waves of an un¬ 
wholesome sea might do. It was dense enough to shut out 
everything from the light of the coach-lamps but these its own 
workings, and a few yards of road; and the reek of the labour¬ 
ing horses steamed into it, as if they had made it all. 

Two other passengers, besides the one, were plodding up 
the hill by the side of the mail. All three were wrapped to 
the cheek-bones and over the ears, and wore jack-boots. Not 
one of the three could have said, from anything he saw, what 
either of the other two was like; and each was hidden under 
almost as many wrappers from the eyes of the mind, as from 
the eyes of the body, of his two companions. In those days, 
travellers were very shy of being confidential on a short notice, 
for anybody on the road might be a robber or in league with 
robbers. As to the latter, when every posting-house and ale¬ 
house could produce somebody in “the Captain’s” pay, rang¬ 
ing from the landlord to the low T est stable nondescript, it was 
the likeliest thing upon the cards. So the guard of the Dover 
mail thought to himself, that Friday night in November, one 
thousand seven hundred and seventy-five, lumbering up 
Shooter’s Hill, as he stood on his own particular perch behind 
the mail, beating his feet, and keeping an eye and a hand on 
the arm-chest before him, where a loaded blunderbuss lay at 
the top of six or eight loaded horse-pistols, deposited on a sub¬ 
stratum of cutlass. 

The Dover mail was in its usual genial position that the 
guard suspected the passengers, the passengers suspected one 
another and the guard, they all suspected everybody else, and 
the coachman w T as sure of nothing but the horses; as to which 
cattle he could with a clear conscience have taken his oath on 
the two Testaments that they were not fit for the journey. 



THE MAIL 


55 


“Wo-ho!” said the coachman. “So, then! One more pull 
and you’re at the top and be damned to you, for I have had 
trouble enough to get you to it!—Joe!” 

“Halloa!” the guard replied. 

“What o’clock do you make it, Joe?” 

“Ten minutes, good, past eleven.” 

“My blood!” ejaculated the vexed coachman, “and not 
atop of Shooter’s yet! Tst! Yah! Get on with you!” 

The emphatic horse, cut short by the whip in a most decided 
negative, made a decided scramble for it, and the three other 
horses followed suit. Once more, the Dover mail struggled 
on, with the jack-boots of its passengers squashing along by 
its side. They had stopped when the coach stopped, and 
they kept close company with it. If any one of the three had 
had the hardihood to propose to another to walk on a little 
ahead into the mist and darkness, he would have put himself 
in a fair way of getting shot instantly as a highwayman. 

The last burst carried the mail to the summit of the hill. 
The horses stopped to breathe again, and the guard got down 
to skid the wheel for the descent, and open the coach-door 
to let the passengers in. 

“Tst! Joe!” cried the coachman in a warning voice, look¬ 
ing down from his box. 

“What do you say, Tom?” 

They both listened. 

“I say a horse at a canter coming up, Joe.” 

“I say a horse at a gallop, Tom,” returned the guard, leav¬ 
ing his hold of the door, and mounting nimbly to his place. 
“Gentlemen! In the king’s name, all of you!” 1 

With ihis hurried adjuration, he cocked his blunderbuss, 
and stood on the offensive. 

i See, for an account of the prevalence of highway robbery in England 
at this period, W.C. Sydney, England in the Eighteenth Century , Vol. II. 
Chap, xi, p. 31. 




56 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


The pa^enger booked by this history, was on the coach 
step, getting in; the other two passengers were close behind 
him, and about to follow. He remained on the step, half in the 
coach and half out of it; they remained in the road below him. 
They all looked from the coachman to the guard, and from 
the guard to the coachman, and listened. The coachman 
looked back and the guard looked back, and even the emphat¬ 
ic leader pricked up his ears and looked back, without con¬ 
tradicting. 

The stillness consequent on the cessation of the rumbling 
and labouring of the coach, added to the stillness of the night, 
made it very quiet indeed. The panting of the horses com¬ 
municated a tremulous motion to the coach, as if it were in a 
state of agitation. The hearts of the passengers beat loud 
enough perhaps to be heard; but at any rate, the quiet pause 
was audibly expressive of people out of breath, and holding 
the breath, and having the pulses quickened by expec¬ 
tation. 

The sound of a horse at a gallop came fast and furiously up 
the hill. 

“So-hoI” the guard sang out, as loud as he could roar. 
“ Yo there! Stand! I shall fire1” 

The pace was suddenly checked, and, with much splashing 
and floundering, a man’s voice called from the mist, “Is that 
the Dover mail?” 

“Never you mind what it is?” the guard retorted. “What 
are you?” 

“Is that the Dover mail?” 

“Why do you want to know?” 

“I want a passenger, if it is.” 

“What passenger?” 

“Mr. Jarvis Lorry.” 

Our booked passenger showed in a moment that it was his 



THE MAIL 


57 


name. The guard, the coachman, and the two other passen¬ 
gers eyed him distrustfully. 

“Keep where you are,” the guard called to the voice in the 
mist, “because, if I should make a mistake, it could never be 
set right in your lifetime. Gentleman of the name of Lorry 
answer straight.” 

“What is the matter?” asked the passenger, then, with 
mildly quavering speech. “Who wants me? Is it Jerry?” 

(“I don’t like Jerry’s voice, if it is Jerry,” growled the guard 
to himself. “He’s hoarser than suits me, is Jerry.”) 

“Yes, Mr. Lorry.” 

“What is the matter?” 

“A despatch sent after you from over yonder. T. and Co.” 

“I know this messenger, guard,” said Mr. Lorry, getting 
down into the road—assisted from behind more swiftly than 
politely by the other two passengers, who immediately scram¬ 
bled into the coach, shut the door, and pulled up the window. 
“He may come close; there’s nothing wrong.” 

“I hope there ain’t, but I can’t make so ’Nation sure of 
that, ’ ’ said the guard, in gruff soliloquy. “Hallo you!” 

“Well! And hallo you!” said Jerry, more hoarsely than 
before. 

“Come on at a footpace! d’ye mind me? And if you’ve got 
holsters to that saddle o’ yourn, don’t let me see your hand 
/go nigh ’em. For I’m a devil at a quick mistake, and when I 
make one it takes the form of Lead. So now let’s look at you.” 

The figures of a horse and rider came slowly through the 
eddying mist, and came to the side of the mail, where the pas¬ 
senger stood. The rider stooped, and, casting up his eyes at 
the guard, handed the passenger a small folded paper. The 
rider’s horse was blown, and both horse and rider were cov- 
ered with mud, from the hoofs of the horse to the hat of 
the man. 


58 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“Guardi” said the passenger, in a tone of quiet business 
confidence. 

The watchful guard, with his right hand at the stock of his 
raised blunderbuss, his left at the barrel, and his eye on the 
horseman, answered curtly, “Sir.” 

“There is nothing to apprehend. I belong to Tellson’s 
Bank. You must know Tellson’s Bank in London. I am 
going to Paris on business. A crown to drink. I may read 
this?” 

“If so be as you’re quick, sir.” 

He opened it in the light of the coach-lamp oil that side, 
and read—first to himself and then aloud: “ ‘Wait at Dover 
„*or Mam’selle.’ It’s not long, you see, guard. Jerry, say 
diat my answer was, recalled to life.” 

Jerry started in his saddle. “That’s a Blazing strange an¬ 
swer, too,” said he, at his hoarsest. 

“Take that message back, and they will know that I re¬ 
ceived this, as well as if I wrote. Make the best of your way. 
Good night.” 

With those words the passenger opened the coach-door and 
got in; not at all assisted by his fellow-passengers, who had 
expeditiously secreted their watches and purses in their boots, 
and were now making a general pretence of being asleep. 
With no more definite purpose than to escape the hazard of 
originating any other kind of action. 

The coach lumbered on again, with heavier wreaths of mist 
closing round it as it began the descent. The guard soon re¬ 
placed his blunderbuss in his arm-chest, and, having looked 
to the rest of its contents, and having looked to the supple¬ 
mentary pistols that he wore in his belt, looked to a smaller 
chest beneath his seat, in which there were a few smith’s tools, 
a couple of torches, and a tinder-box. For he was furnished 
with that completeness that if the coach-lamps had been 



THE MAIL 


59 


blown and stormed out, which did occasionally happen, he 
bad only to shut himself up inside, keep the flint and steel 
sparks well off the straw, and get a light with tolerable 
safety and ease (if he were lucky) in five minutes. 

“Tom!” softly over the coach-roof. 

“Hallo, Joe.” , 

“Did you hear the message?” 

“I did, Joe.” 

“What did you make of it, Tom?” 

“Nothing at all, Joe.” 

“That’s a coincidence, too,” the guard mused, “for I made 
the same of it myself.” 

Jerry, left alone in the mist and darkness, dismounted 
meanwhile, not only to ease his spent horse, but to wipe the 
mud from his face, and shake the wet out of his hat-brim, 
which might be capable of holding about half a gallon. After 
standing with the bridle over his heavily-splashed arm, until 
the wheels of the mail were no longer within hearing and the 
night was quite still again, he turned to walk down the hill. 

“After that there gallop from Temple Bar, old lady, I won’t 
trust your fore-legs till I get you on the level, said this hoarse 
messenger, glancing at his mare. “ 'Recalled to life.’ That’s 
a Blazing strange message. Much of that wouldn’t do for you, 
Jerry! I say, Jerry I You’d be in a Blazing bad way, if re¬ 
calling to life was to come into fashion, Jerry!” 



CHAPTER III. 

jij 

THE NIGHT SHADOWS ' Si 

A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature 
is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every 1 
other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by 
night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses 
its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses- 
its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of 
thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a se- ‘ 
cret to the heart nearest it! Something of the awfulness even 
of Death itself, is referable to this. No more can I turn the 
leaves of this dear book that I loved, and vainly hope in time 
to read it all. No more can I look into the depths of this un¬ 
fathomable water, wherein, as momentary lights glanced into 
it, I have had glimpses of buried treasure and other things 
submerged. It was appointed that the book should shut with 
a spring, for ever and for ever, when I had read but a page. 
It was appointed that the water should be locked in an eternal 
frost, when the light was playing on its surface, and I stood in 
ignorance on the shore. My friend is dead, my neighbour is 
dead, my love, the darling of my soul, is dead; it is the inexor¬ 
able consolidation and perpetuation of the secret that was al¬ 
ways in that individuality, and which I shall carry in mine to 
my life’s end. In any of the burial-places of this city through 
which I pass, is there a sleeper more inscrutable than its busy 
inhabitants are, in their innermost personality, to me, or 
than I am to them? 

As to this, his natural and not to be alienated inheritance, 
the messenger on horseback had exactly the same possessions 

60 








TH^ MIGHT SHADOWS 


61 


as the King, the first Minister of State, or the richest merchant 
in London. So with the three passengers shut up in the 
i narrow compass of one lumbering old mail coach; they were 
! mysteries to one another, as complete as if each had been 
in his own coach and six, or his own coach and sixty, with the 
in breadth of a county between him and the next. 

:r The messenger rode back at an easy trot, stopping pretty 
t) often at ale-houses by the way to drink, but evincing a tend- 
>( ency to keep his own counsel, and to keep his hat cocked over 
;t| his eyes. He had eyes that assorted very well with that deco- 
(j ration, being of a surface black, with no depth in the colour or 
il form, and much too near together—as if they were afraid of 
ej being found out in something, singly, if they kept too far 

! apart. ^They had a sinister expression, under an old cocked- 
hat like a three-cornered spittoon, and over a great muffler for 
[ the chin and throat, which descended nearly to the wearer’s 
I knees. When he stopped for drink, he moved this muffler 
t with his left hand, only while he poured his liquor in with his 
t right; as soon as that was done, he muffled again. 

“No, Jerry, no!” said the messenger, harping on one theme 
as he rode. “It wouldn’t do for you, Jerry. Jerry, you hon¬ 
est tradesman, it w T ouldn’t suit your line of business! Re¬ 
called—! Bust me if I don’t think he’d been a drinking!” 

His message perplexed his mind to that degree that he 
was fain, several times, to take off his hat to scratch his head. 
Except on the crown, which was raggedly bald, he had stiff, 
black hair, standing jaggedly all over it, and growing down 
hill almost to his broad, blunt nose. It was so like smith’s 
work, so much more like the top of a strongly spiked wall than 
a head of hair, that the best of players at leap-frog might have 
declined him, as the most dangerous man in the world to go 
over. * 

While he trotted back with the message he was to deliver to 




62 


si, TALE OF TWO CITIES 


the night watchman in his box at the door of Tellson s Bank | 
by Temple Bar, who was to deliver it to greater authorities 
within, the shadows of the night took such shapes to him as 
arose out of the message, and took such shapes to the mare as < 
arose out of her private topics of uneasiness. They seemed to ) 
be numerous, for she shied at every shadow on the road. , 

What time, the mail-coach lumbered, jolted, rattled, and | 
bumped upon its tedious way, with its three fellow-inscruta- 
bles inside. To whom, likewise, the shadows of the night 
revealed themselves, in the forms their dozing eyes and wan¬ 
dering thoughts suggested. 

Tellson’s Bank had a run upon it in the mail. As the bank 
passenger—with an arm drawn through the leathern strap, 
which did what lay in it to keep him from pounding against 
'the next passenger, and driving him into his corner, whenever 
the coach got a special jolt—nodded in his place, with half-; 
shut eyes, the little coach-windows, and the coach-lamp dimly 
gleaming through them, and the bulky bundle of opposite 
passenger, became the bank, and did a great stroke of busi¬ 
ness. The rattle of the harness was the chink of money, and 
more drafts were honoured in five minutes than evenTellson’si 
with all its foreign and home connexion, ever paid in thrice: 
the time. Then the strong-rooms underground, at Tellson’s,; 
ivith such of their valuable stores and secrets as were known 
to the passenger (and it was not a little that he knew about 
them), opened before him, and he went in among them with 
the great keys and the feebly-burning candle, and found them 
safe, and strong, and sound, and still, just as he had last seen 
them. 

But, though the bank was almost always with him, and 
though the coach (in a confused way, like the presence of pair 
under an opiate) was always with him, there was another 
current of impression that never ceased to run, all through 



THE NIGHT SHADOWS 


63 


the night. He was on his way to dig some one out of a grave. 

Now, which of the multitude of faces that showed them¬ 
selves before him was the true face of the buried person, the 
shadows of the night did not indicate; but they were all the 
faces of a man of five-and-forty by years, and they differed 
principally in the passions they expressed, and in the ghast¬ 
liness of their worn and wasted state. Pride, contempt, defi¬ 
ance, stubbornness, submission, lamentation, succeeded one 
another; so did varieties of sunken cheek, cadaverous colour, 
emaciated hands and figures. But the face was in the 
main one face, and every head was prematurely white. 
A hundred times the dozing passenger inquired of this 
spectre: 

“Buried how long?” 

, The answer was always the same: “Almost eighteen years.” 

“You had abandoned all hope of being dug out? 

“Long ago.” 

“You know that you are recalled to life?” 

“They tell me so.” 

“I hope you care to live?” 

“I can’t say.” 

“Shall I show her to you? Will you come and see her?” 

The answers to this question were various and contradic¬ 
tory. Sometimes the broken reply was, “Wait! It would kill 
me if I saw her too soon.” Sometimes, it was given in a ten¬ 
der rain of tears, and then it was Take me to her. Some¬ 
times it was staring and bewildered,.and then it was, “I don’t 
know her. I don’t understand.” 

After such imaginary discourse, the passenger in his fancy 
would dig, and dig, dig—now, with a spade, now with a great 
key, now with his hands—to dig this wretched creature out. 
Got out at last, with earth hanging about his face and hair, he 
would suddenly fall away to dust. The passenger would then 


64 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


start to himself, and lower the window, to get the reality of 
mist and rain on his cheek. 

Yet even when h is eyes were opened on the mist and rain* 
on the moving patch of light from the lamps, and the hedge at 
the roadside retreating by jerks, the night shadows outside the 
coach would fall into the train of the night shadows within. 
The real Banking-house by Temple Bar, the real business of 
the past day, the real strong-rooms, the real express sent after 
him, and the real message returned, would all be there. Out 
of the midst of them, the ghostly face would rise, and he 
would accost it again. 

“Buried how long?” 

“Almost eighteen years.” 

“I hope you care to live?” 

“I can’t say.” 

Dig—dig—dig—until an impatient movement from one of 
the two passengers would admonish him to pull up the win¬ 
dow draw his arm securely through the leathern st^ap, and 
speculate upon the two slumbering forms, until his mind lost - 
its hold of them, and they again slid away into the bank and 
the grave. 

“Buried how long?” 

“Almost eighteen years.” 

“You had abandoned all hope of being dug out?” 

“Long ago.” 

The words were still in his hearing as just spoken—dis¬ 
tinctly in his hearing as ever spoken words had been in his life 
—when the weary passenger started to the consciousness of 
daylight, and found that the shadows of the night were gone. 

He lowered the window, and looked out at the rising sun. 
There was a ridge of ploughed land, with a plough upon it 
where it had been left last night when the horses were un¬ 
yoked ; beyond, a quiet coppice-wood, in which many leaves of 


THE NIGHT SHADOWS 


65 


burning red and golden yellow still remained upon the trees. 
Though the earth was cold and wet, the sky was clear, and the 
sun rose bright, placid, and beautiful. 

“Eighteen years!” said the passenger, looking at the sun. 
“Gracious Creator of davl To be buried alive for eighteen 
years!” 


i 


CHAPTER IV. 


THE PREPARATION 

When the mail got successfully to Dover , 1 in the course of 
the forenoon, the head drawer at the Royal George Hotel 
opened the coach-door as his custom was. He did it with 
some flourish of ceremony, for a mail journey from London in 
winter was an achievement to congratulate an adventurous 
traveller upon. 

By that time, there was only one adventurous traveller leR 
to be congratulated; for the two others had been set down at 
their respective roadside destinations. The mildewy inside 
of the coach, with its damp and dirty straw, its disagreeable 
smell, and its obscurity, was rather like a larger dog-kennel. 
Mr. Lorry, the passenger, shaking himself out of it in chains of 
straw, a tangle of shaggy wrapper, flapping hat, and muddy 
legs, was rather like a larger sort of dog. 

“There will be a packet to Calais, to-morrow, drawer? 
“Yes, sir, if the weather holds and the wind sets tolerable 
fair. The tide wil 1 serve pretty nicely at about two in the 
afternoon, sir. Bed, sir? 

“I shall not go to bed till night; but I want a bedroom, and 
a barber.” 

“And then breakfast, sir? Yes, sir. That way, sir, if you 
please. Show Concord! Gentleman’s valise and hot water 
to Concord. Pull off gentlemans boots in Concord. (You 
will find a fine sea-cpal fire, sir.) Fetch barber to Concord. 
Stir about there, now, for Concord!” 

i How far and in what direction from London is Dover? See a map of 
England. 


THE PREPARATION 


67 


The Concord bed-chamber being always assigned to a pas¬ 
senger by the mail, and passengers by the mail being always 
heavily wrapped up from head to foot, the room had the odd 
interest for the establishment of the Royal George, that al¬ 
though but one kind of man was seen to go into it, all kinds 
and varieties of men came out of it. Consequently, another 
i drawer, and two porters, and several maids and the landlady, 
wer£ all loitering by accident at various points of the road 
between the Concord and the coffee-room, when a gentleman 
of sixty, formally dressed in a brown suit of clothes, pretty 
well worn, but very well kept, with large square cuffs and large 
flaps to the pockets, passed along on his way to his breakfast. 

The coffee-room had no other occupant, that forenoon, than 
the gentleman in brown. His breakfast-table was drawn 
before the fire, and as he sat, with its light shining on him 
waiting for the meal, he sat so still, that he might have beei 
sitting for his portrait. 

j Very orderly and methodical he looked, with a hand on ear rt 
j knee, and a loud watch ticking a sonorous sermon under his 
i flapped waistcoat, as though it pitted its gravity and longer 
I ity against the levity and evanescence of the brisk fire. He had 
a good leg, and was a little vain of it, for his brown stockings 
[ fitted sleek and close, and were of a fine texture; his shoes and 
buckles, too, though plain, were trim. He wore an odd little 
sleek crisp flaxen wig, setting very close to his head: which 
wig, it is to be presumed, was made of hair, but which looked 
I far more as though it were spun from filaments of silk or glass 
His linen, though not of*a fineness in accordance with his 
stockings, w r as as white as the tops of the waves that broke up¬ 
on the neighbouring beach or the specks of sail that glinted in 
the sunlight far at sea. A face habitually suppressed and 
quieted, was still lighted up under the quaint wig by a pair of 
moist bright eyes that it must have cost their owner, in years 



68 


A TALE OF TWO CITTES 


gone by, some pains to drill to the composed and reserved 
expression of Tellson’s Bank. He had a healthy coloui in hisl 
cheeks, and his face, though lined, bore few traces of anxiety. 
But, perhaps the confidential bachelor clerks inTellson’s Bank 
were principally occupied with the cares of other people; andj 
perhaps second-hand cares, like second-hand clothes, come 
easily off and on. . It 

Completing his resemblance to a man who was sitting for 
his portrait, Mr. Lorry dropped off to sleep. The arrival of 
his breakfast roused him, and he said to the drawer, as he 
moved his chair to it: 

“I wish accommodation prepared for a young lady who may^ 
come here at any time to-day. She may ask for Mr. Jarvisj 
Lorry, or she may only ask for a gentleman from Tellson’s 
Bank. Please to let me know.” 

‘‘Yes, sir. Tellson’s Bank in London, sir?” 

“Yes.”' 

“Yes, sir. We have oftentimes the honouT to entertain 
your gentlemen in their travelling backwards and forwarfe 
betwixt London and Paris, sir. A vast deal of travelling, sir, ; 
inTellson and Company’s House.” 

Yes; we are qui te a French House, as well as an English one.” j 

“Yes, sir. Not much in the habit of such travelling your¬ 
self, I think, sir?” 

“Not of late years. It is fifteen years since we—since I— 
came last from France.” 

“Indeed, sir? That was before my time here, sir. Before 
our people’s time here, sir. The George was in other hands 
at that time, sir.” 

“I believe so.” 

“But I would hold a pretty wager, sir, that a House like 
Tellson and Company was flourishing, a matter of fifty, not to 
speak of fifteen years ago?” 





THE PREPARATION 


69 


“You might treble that, and say a. hundred and fifty, yet 
not be far from the truth.” 

“Indeed, sir!” 

Rounding his mouth and both his eyes, as he stepped back¬ 
ward from the table, the waiter shifted his napkin from his 
right arm to his left, dropped into a comfortable attitude, 
and stood surveying the guest wdiile he ate and drank, as from 
an observatory or watch-tower. According to the immemo¬ 
rial usage of waiters in all ages. 

When Mr. Lorry had finished his breakfast, he went out for 
a stroll on the beach. The little narrow, crooked town of 
Dover hid itself away from the beach, and ran its head into 
the chalk cliffs, like a marine ostrich. The beach -was a desert 
of heaps of sea and stones tumbling wildly about, and the sea 
did what it liked, and what it liked was destruction. It 
thundered at the town, and thundered at the cliffs, and 
brought the coast down, madly. The air among the houses 
was of so strong a piscatory flavour that one might have sup¬ 
posed sick fish went up to be dipped in it, as sick people went 
down to be dipped in the sea. A little fishing was done in the 
port, and a quantity of strolling about by night, and looking 
seaward: particularly at those times when the tide made, and 
was near flood. Small tradesmen, who did no business what¬ 
ever, sometimes unaccountably realised large fortunes, and it 
was remarkable that nobody in the neighbourhood could en¬ 
dure a lamplighter. 

As the day declined into the afternoon, and the air, which 
had been at intervals clear enough to allow the French coast 
to be seen, became again charged with mist and vapour, Mr. 
Lorry’s thoughts seemed to cloud too. When it was dark, 
and he sat before the coffee-room fire, awaiting his dinner as 
he had aw T aited his breakfast, his mind was busily digging, 
digging, digging, in the live red coals. 




70 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


A bottle of good claret after dinner does a digger in th. red 
coals no harm, otherwise than as it has a tendency to throw 
him out of work. Mr. Lorry had been idle a long time, and 
had just poured out his last glassful of wine with as complete 
an appearance of satisfaction as is ever to be found in an elder¬ 
ly gentleman of a fresh complexion who has got to the end of 
a bottle, when a rattling of wheels came up the narrow street 
and rumbled into the inn-yard. 

He set down his glass untouched. “This is Mam sellel 
said he. 

In a very few minutes the waiter came in to announce that 
MissManette had arrived from London, and would be happy 
to see the gentleman fromTellson’s. 

“So soon?” 

MissManette had taken some refreshment on the road, and 
required none then, and was extremely anxious to see the 
gentleman fromTellson’s immediately, if it suited his pleasure^ 
and convenience. 

The gentleman fromTellson’s had nothing left for it but to; 
empty his glass with an air of stolid desperation, settle his odd 
little flaxen wig at the ears, and follow the waiter to Miss 
Manette’s apartment. It was a large, dark room, furnished; 
in a funereal manner with black horsehair and loaded with 
heavy dark tables. These had been oiled and oiled, until 
the two tall candles on the table in the middle of the 
room were gloomily reflected on every leaf; as if they were 
buried, in deep graves of black mahogany, and no light to 
speak of could be expected from them until they were dug out. 

The obscurity was so difficult to penetrate that Mr. Lorry,, 
picking his way over the well-worn Turkey carpet, supposed 
Miss Manette to be, for the moment, in soi^ie adjacent room,, 
until, having got past the two tall candles, he saw standing to 
receive him by the table between them and the fire, a young 








THE PREPARATION 


71 


lady of not more than seventeen, in a riding-cloak, and still 
holding her straw travelling-hat by its ribbon in her hand. 
As his eyes rested on a short, slight, pretty figure, a quantity 
of golden hair, a pair of blue eyes that met his own with an 
inquiring look, and a forehead with a singular capacity (re¬ 
membering how young and smooth it was) of lifting and knit¬ 
ting itself into an expression that was not quite one of perplex¬ 
ity, or wonder, or alarm, or merely of a bright fixed attention, 
though it included all the four expressions—as his eyes rested 
on these things, a sudden vivid likeness passed before him, of a 
child whom he had held in his arms on the passage across that 
very Channel, one cold time, when the hail drifted heavily 
and the sea ran high. The likeness passed away, like a breath 
along the surface of the gaunt pier-glass behind her, on the 
frame of which, a hospital procession of negro cupids, several 
headless and all cripples, were offering black baskets of Dead 
Sea fruit to black divinities of the feminine gender—and he 
made his formal bow to Miss Manette. 

“Pray take a seat, sir.” In a very clear and pleasant 
young voice; a little foreign in its accent, but a very little 
indeed. 

“I kiss your hand, miss,” said Mr. Lorry, with the manners 
of an earlier date, as he made his formal bow again, and took 
his seat. 

“I received a letter from the Bank, sir, yesterday, inform¬ 
ing me that some intelligence—or discovery—” 

“The word is not material, miss; either word will do.” 
“—respecting the small property of my poor father, whom 
I never saw—so long dead—” 

Mr. Lorry moved in his chair, and cast a troubled look 
towards the hospital procession of negro cupids. As if they 
had any help for anybody in their absurd baskets l 

“—rendered it necessary that I should go to Paris, there to 




72 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


communicate with a gentleman of the Bank, so good as to be 
‘espatched to Paris for the purpose.” 

“Myself.” 

“As I was prepared to hear, sir.” 

She curtseyed to him (young ladies made curtseys in those 
days), with a pretty desire to convey to him that she felt how 
much older and wiser he was than she. He made her anoth¬ 
er bow. 

“I replied to the Bank, sir, that as it was considered neces¬ 
sary, by those who know, and who are so kind as to advise me, 
that I should go to France, and that as I am an orphan and 
have no friend who could go with me, I should esteem it highly 
if I might be permitted to place myself, during the journey, 
under that worthy gentleman’s protection. The gentleman 
had left London, but I think a messenger was sent after him to 
beg the favour of his waiting for me here.” 

“I was happy,” said Mr. Lorry, “to be entrusted with the 
charge. I shall be more happy to execute it.” 

“Sir, I thank you indeed. I thank you very gratefully. 
It was told me by the Bank that the gentleman would explain 
to me the details of the business, and that I must prepare my¬ 
self to find them of a surprising nature. I have done my best 
to prepare myself, and I naturally have a strong and eager 
interest to know what they are.” 

“Naturally,” saidMr. Lorry. “Yes—I—” 

After a pause, he added, again settling the crisp flaxen wig 
at the ears: 

“It is very difficult to begin.” 

He did not begin, but, in his indecision, met her glance. 
The young forehead lifted itself into that singular expression 
—but it was pretty and characteristic, besides being singular 
—and she raised her hand, as if with an involuntary action 
she caught at, or stayed, some passing shadow. 


THE PREPARATION 


T6 


^ “Are you quite a stranger to me, sir?” 

“Am I not?” Mr. Lorry opened his hands, and extended 
them outwards with an argumentative smile. 

Between the eyebrows and just over the little feminine nose, 
i the line of which was as delicate and fine as it was possible to 
be, the expression deepened itself as she took her seat thought¬ 
fully in the chair by which she had hitherto remained stand¬ 
ing. He watched her as she mused, and the moment sht 
raised her eyes again, went on: 

“In your adopted country, I presume, I cannot do better 
than address you as a young English lady, Miss Manette?” 
► “If you please, sir.” 

“MissManette, I am a man of business. I have a business 
charge to acquit myself of. In your reception of it, don’t 
heed me any more than if I was a speaking machine—truly, 
I am not much else. I will, with your leave, relate to you, 
miss, the story of one of our customers.” 

“Story!” 

He seemed wilfully to mistake the word she had repeated, 
when he added, in a hurry, “Yes, customers; in the banking 
business we usually call our connexion our customers. He 
was a French gentleman; a scientific gentleman; a man of 
great acquirements—a Doctor.” 

\ “Not of Beauvais?” 

. “Why, yes, of Beauvais. Like Monsieur Manette, your 
father, the gentleman was of Beauvais. Like Monsieur Man¬ 
ette, your father, the gentleman was of repute in Paris. I had 
the honour of knowing him there. Our relations were busi¬ 
ness relations, but confidential. I was at that time in oui 
French House, and had been—oh! twenty years.” 

“At that time—I may ask, at what time, sir?” 

“I speak, miss, of twenty years ago. He married—an Eng¬ 
lish lady—and 1 was one of the trustees. His affairs, like the 







74 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


affairs of many other French gentlemen and French families, 
were entirely in Tellson’s hands. In a similar way I am, or 
I have been, trustee of one kind or other for scores of our cus- 
tomers. These are mere business relations, miss; there is no 
friendship in them, no particular interest, nothing like senti¬ 
ment I have passed from one to another, in the course ot 
my business life, just as I pass from one of our customers to 
another in the course of my business day; in short, I have no 

feelings; I am a mere machine. To goon—” . 

“But this is my father’s story, sir; and I begin to think . 
the curiously roughened forehead was very intent upon him 
—“that when I was left an orphan through my mother’s sur¬ 
viving my father only two years, it was you who brought me 
to England. I am almost sure it was you.” . 

Mr. Lorry took the hesitating little hand that confidingly i 
advanced to take his, and he put it with some ceremony to 
his lips. He then conducted the young lady straightway to 
her chair again, and, holding the chair-back with his left hand, 
and using his right by turns to rub his chin, pull his wig at the 
ears, or point what he said, stood looking down into her face 
while she sat looking up into his. 

“Miss Manette, it was I. And you will see how truly I 
spoke of myself just now, in saying I had no feelings, and that 
all the relations I hold with my fellow-creatures are mere bus¬ 
iness relations, when you reflect that I have never seen you 
since. No; you have been the ward of Tellson’s House since, 
and I have been busy with the other business of Tellson’s 
House since. Feelings! I have no time for them, no chance 
of them. I pass my whole life, miss, in turning an immense 
pecuniary Mangle.” 1 

After this odd description of his daily routine of employ¬ 
ment, Mr. Lorry flattened his flaxen wig upon his head with 

n An ironing machine operated by turning a crank. 



THE PREPARATION 


75 


both hands (which was most unnecessary, for nothing could 
be flatter than its shining surface was before), and resumed 
his former attitude. 

“So far, miss (as yqu have remarked), this is the story of 
your regretted father. Now comes the difference. If your 
father had not died when he did—Don’t be frightened! How 
you start!” 

She did, indeed, start. And she caught his wrist with 
both her hands. 

“Pray,” said Mr. Lorry, in a soothing tone, bringing his 
left hand from the back of the chair to lay it on the suppli¬ 
catory fingers that clasped him in so violent a tremble: 
“pray control your agitation—a matter of business. As 1 
was saying-” 

Her look so discomposed him that he stopped, wandered, 
and began anew: 

“As I was saying; if Monsieur Manette had not died; if he 
had suddenly and silently disappeared; if he had been spirited 
away; if it had not been difficult to guess to what dreadful 
place; though no art could trace him; if he had an enemy in 
some compatriot who could exercise a privilege that I in my 
own time have known the boldest people afraid to speak of 
in a whisper, across the water there; for instance, the privilege 
of filling up blank forms for the consignment of any one to 
the oblivion of a prison for any length of time; if his wife had 
implored the king, the queen, the court, the clergy, for any 
tidings of him, and all quite in vain;—then the history of 
your father would have been the history of this unfortunate 
gentleman, the Doctor of Beauvais.” 

“I entreat you to tell me more, sir.” 

“I will. I am going to. You can bear it?” 

“I can bear an vising but the' uncertainty you leave me in 
at this moment.” 


76 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“You speak collectedly, and you —are collected. That s 
goodl” (Though his manner was less satisfied than his 
words.) “A matter of business. Regard it as a matter of 
business-business that must be done. Now if this doctor’s 
wife, though a lady of great courage and spirit, had suffered 
go intensely from this cause before her little child was born—” 
“The little child was a daughter, sir.” 

“A daughter. A—a—matter of business—don’t be distress¬ 
ed. Miss, if the poor lady had suffered so intensely before her 
little child was born, that she came to the determination of 
sparing the poor child the inheritance of any part of the agony 
she had known the pains of, by rearing her in the belief that 

her father was dead-No, don’t kneel! In Heaven’s name, 

why should you kneel to me!” 

“For the truth. O dear, good, compassionate sir, for the 

truth!” 

“A—a matter of business. You confuse me, and how can 
I transact business if I am confused? Let us be clear-headed. 
If you could kindly mention now, for instance, what nine 
times ninepence are, or how many shillings in twenty guineas, 
it would be so encouraging. I should be so much more at 
my ease about your state of mind.” 

Without directly answering to this appeal, she sat so still 
when he had ver y gently raised her, and the hands that had 
not ceased to clasp his wrists were so much more steady than 
they had been, that she communicated some reassurance to 
Mr. Jarvis Lorry. 

“That’s right, that’s right. Courage! Business! You 
have business before you; useful business. Miss Manette, 
your mother took this course with you. And when she 
died—X believe broken-hearted—having never slackened hei 
unavailing search for your father, she left you, at two years 
old, to grow to be blooming, beautiful, and happy, withoT 


THE PREPARATION 


77 


the dark cloud upon you of living in uncertainty whether 
your father soon wore his heart out in prison, or wasted there 
through many lingering years.” 

As he said the words he looked down, with an admiring 
pity, on the flowing golden hair; as if he pictured to himself 
that it might have been already tinged with grey. 

Y ou know that your parents had no great possession, and 
that what they had was secured to your mother and to vou. 
There has been no new discovery, of money, or of any other 
property; but—” 

He felt his wrist held closer, and he stopped. The ex¬ 
pression in the forehead, which had so particularly attracted 
his notice, and which was now immovable, had deepened 
into one of pain and horror. 

But he has been—been found. He is alive. Greatly 
changed, it is too probable; almost a wreck, it is possible; 
though we will hope the best. Still, alive. Your "father 
has been taken to the house of an old servant in Paris, and 
we are going there: I, to identify him if I can: you, to restore 
him to life, love, duty, rest, comfort.” 

A shiver ran through her frame, and from it through his. 
She said, in a low, distinct, awe-stricken voice, as if she were 
saying it in a dream: 

“I am going to see his Ghost! It will be his Ghost—not 
him!” 

Mr. Lorry quietly chafed the hands that held his arm. 
“There, there, there! See now, see now! The best and the 
worst are known to you, now. You are well on your way to the 
poor wronged gentleman, and, with a fair sea voyage, and 
a fair land journey, you will be soon at his dear side.” 

She repeated in the same tone, sunk to a whisper, “I have 
been free, I have been happy, yet his Ghost has never haunted 
me!” 


78 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“Only one thing more,” said Mr. Lorry, laying stress upon 
it as a wholesome means of enforcing her attention: “he has 
been found under another name; his own, long forgotten or 
long concealed. It would be worse than useless now to in¬ 
quire which; worse than useless to seek to know whether he 
has been for years overlooked, or always designedly held 
prisoner. It would be worse than useless now to make any 
inquiries, because it would be dangerous. Better not to men¬ 
tion the subject, anywhere or in any way, and to remove 
him—for a while at all events—out of France. Even I, safe 
as an Englishman, and even Tellson’s, important as they are 
to French credit, avoid all naming of the matter. I carry 
about me, not a scrap of writing openly referring to it. This 
is a secret service altogether. My credentials, entries, and 
memoranda, are all comprehended in the one line, ‘Recalled 
to Life;’ which may mean anything. But what is the mat¬ 
ter! She doesn’t notice a word! Miss Manette! 

Perfectly still and silent, and not even fallen back in her 
chair, she sat under his hand, utterly insensible; with her 
eyes open and fixed upon him, and with that last expression 
looking as if it were carved or branded into her forehead. 
So close was her hold upon his arm, that he feared to detach 
himself lest he should hurt her; therefore he called out loudly 
for assistance without moving. 

A wild-looking woman, whom even in his agitation, Mr. 
Lorry observed to be all of a red colour, and to have red hair, 
and to be dressed in some extraordinary tight-fitting fashion, 
and to have on her head a most wonderful bonnet like a Gren¬ 
adier wooden measure, and good measure too, or a great Stil¬ 
ton cheese, came running into the room in advance of the inn 
servants, and soon settled the question of his detathment 
from the poor young lady, by laying a brawny hand upon 
his chest, and sending him flying back against the nearest 
wall. 


THE PREPARATION 


79 


(“I really think this must be a man!” was Mr. Lorry’s 
breathless reflection, simultaneously with his coming against 
the wall.) 

? “Why, look at you all!” bawled this figure, addressing the 
inn servants. “Why don’t you go and fetch things, instead 
of standing there staring at me? T am not so much.to look 
at, am I? Why don’t you go and fetch things? I’ll let you 
know, if you don’t bring smelling-salts, cold water, and vine¬ 
gar, quick, I will.” 

There was an immediate dispersal for these restoratives, 
and she softly laid the patient on a sofa, and tended her with 
great skill and gentleness: calling her “my precious!” and 
“my bird!” and spreading her golden hair aside over her 
shoulders with great pride and care. 

y “And you in brown!” she said, indignantly turning to Mr. 
Lorry; “couldn’t you tell her what you had to tell her, with¬ 
out frightening her to death? Look at her, with her pretty 
pale face and her cold hands. Do you call that being a Bank¬ 
er?” 

Mr. Lorry was so exceedingly disconcerted by a question 
so hard to answer, that he could only look on, at a distance, 
with much feebler sympathy and humility, while the strong 
woman, having banished the inn servants under the mysteri¬ 
ous penalty of “letting them know” something not mention¬ 
ed if they stayed there, staring, recovered her charge by a 
regular series of gradations, and coaxed her to lay her droop¬ 
ing head upon her shoulder. 

“I hope she will do well now,” said Mr. Lorry 
•. “No thanks to you in brown, if she does. My darling 
pretty!” 

“I hope,” saidMr. Lorry, after another pause of feeble sym¬ 
pathy and humility, “that you accompany Miss Manette to 
France?” 





80 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“A likely thing, too!” replied the strong woman. “If it 
was ever intended that I should go across salt water, do you 
suppose Providence would have cast my lot in an island?” 

This being another question hard to answer, Mr. Jarvis 
Lorry withdrew to consider it. 


CHAPTER V. 


If 

J 

K 

ir 


THE WINE-SHOP 

A large cask of wine had been dropped and broken, in the> 
street. The accident had happened in getting it out of a 
cart; the cask had tumbled out with a run, the hoops had 
burst, and it lay on the stones just outside the door of the 
wine-shop, shattered like a walnut-shell. 

All the people within reach had suspended their business, 
or their idleness, to run to the spot and drink the wine. The 
rough, irregular stones of the street, pointing every way, and 
designed, one might have thought, expressly to lame all 
living creatures that approached them, had dammed it into 
little pools; these were surrounded, each by its own jostling 
group or crowd, according to its size. Some men kneeled 
down, made scoops of their two hands joined, and sipped, or 
tried to help women, who bent over their shoulders, to 
sip, before the wine had all run out between their 
fingers. Others, men and women, dipped in the puddles with 
little mugs of mutilated earthenware, or even with handker¬ 
chief" *”om women's heads, which were squeezed dry into 
■nfants mouths; others made small mud embankments, to 
stem the wine as it ran; others, directed by lookers-on up at 
high windows, darted here and there, to cut off little streams 
of wine that started away in new directions; others devoted 
themselves to the sodden and lee-dyed pieces of the cask, 
hckmg, and even champing the moisture wine-rotted frag¬ 
ments with eager relish. There was no drainage to carry off 
the wine, and not only did it all get taken up, but so much 
mud got taken up along with it, that there might have been 




82 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


a scavenger in the street, if anybody acquainted with it could 
have believed in such a miraculous presence. 

A shrill sound of laughter and of amused voices-voices 
of men, women, and children—resounded in the street while 
this wine game lasted. There was little roughness m the 
sport, and much playfulness. There was a special compan¬ 
ionship in it, an observable inclination on the part of every 
one to join some other one, which led, especially among the 
luckier or lighter-hearted, to frolicsome embraces, drinking ot 
healths, shaking of hands, and even joining of hands and danc¬ 
ing, a dozen together. When the wine was gone, and the places 
where it had been most abundant were raked into a gridiron- 
pattern by fingers, these demonstrations ceased, as suddenly 
as they had broken out. The man who had left his saw stick¬ 
ing in the firewood he was cutting, set it in motion again; 
the woman who had left on a door-step the little pot of hot 
ashes, at which she had been trying to soften the pam in her 
own starved fingers and toes, or in those of her child, re¬ 
turned to it; men with bare arms, matted locks, and cadaver¬ 
ous faces, who had emerged into the winter light from cellars, 
moved away, to descend again; and a gloom gathered 
on the scene that appeared more natural to it than 

sunshine. , 

The wine was red wine, and had stained the ground ot the 
narrow street in the suburb of Saint Antoine, in Paris, where 
it was spilled. It had stained many hands, too, and many 
faces, and many naked feet, and many wooden shoes. Tbe 
hands of the man who sawed the wood, left red marks on the 
billets; and the forehead of the woman who nursed her baby, 
was stained with the stain of the old rag she wound about 
her head again. Those who had been greedy with the staves 
of the cask, had acquired a tigerish smear about the mouth; 
?nd one tall joker so besmirched, his head more out of a long 



THE WINE-SHOP 


83 


j» squalid bag of a night-cap than in it, scrawled upon 
k a wa ^ with his finger dipped in muddy wine-lees— 
i Blood. 

I he time was to come, when that wine too would be spilled 
I on the street-stones, and when the stain of it would be red 
(j upon many there. 

And now that the cloud settled on Saint Antoine, which a 
momentary gleam had driven from his sacred countenance, 
I the darkness of it was heavy—cold, dirt, sickness, ignorance, 
f and want were the lords in waiting on the saintly presence— 
\ nobles of great power all of them; but, most especially the 
I last. Samples of a people that had undergone a terrible 
| grinding and re-grinding in the mill, and certainly not in the 
fabulous mill which ground old people young, shivered at 
f every corner, passed in and out at every doorway, looked 
from every window, fluttered in every vestige of a garment 
that the wind shook. The mill which had worked them down 
was the mill that grinds young people old; the children had 
! ancient faces and grave voices; and upon them, and upon the 
grown faces, and ploughed into every furrow of age and com- 
: ing up afresh, was the sign Hunger. It was prevalent eVery- 
\ where. Hunger was pushed out of the tall houses, in the 
jwretched clothing that hung upon poles and lines; Hunger 
[ was patched into them with straw and rag and wood and 
[paper; Hunger was repeated in every fragment of the small 
modicum of firewood that the man sawed off; Hunger stared 
| down from the smokeless chimneys, and started up from the 
filthy street that had no offal, among its refuse, of anything 
to cat. Hunger was the inscription on the baker’s shelves, 
'written in every small loaf of his scanty stock of bad bread; 
at the sausage-shop, in every dead-dog preparation that, 
•■Was offered for sale. Hunger rattled its dry bones among 
the roasting chestnuts in the turned cylinder; Hunger was 



84 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


shred into atomies in every farthing porringer of husky chips 
of potato, fried with some reluctant drops of oil. 

Its abiding place was in all things fitted to it. A narrow 
winding street, full of offence and stench, with other nar¬ 
row winding streets diverging, all peopled by rags and 
nightcaps, and all smelling of rags and nightcaps, and all 
visible things with a brooding look upon them that looked 
ill. In the hunted air of the people there was yet some wild- 
beast thought of the possibility of turning at bay. Depressed 
and slinking though they were, eyes of fire were not wanting 
among them; nor compressed lips, white with what they sup¬ 
pressed; nor foreheads knitted into the likeness of the gallows- ‘ 
rope they mused about enduring or inflicting. The trade 
signs (and they were almost as many as the shops) were, all, 
grim illustrations of Want. The butcher and the porkman 
painted up, only the leanest scrags of meat, the baker, the 
coarsest of meagre loaves. The people rudely pictured as 
drinking in the wine-shops, croaked over their scanty meas¬ 
ures of thin wine and beer, and were gloweringly confidential 
together. Nothing was represented in a flourishing condi¬ 
tion, save tools and weapons; but, the cutler s knives and axes 
were sharp and bright, the smith’s hammers were heavy, and 
the gunmaker’s stock was murderous. The crippling stones 
of the pavement, with their many little reservoirs of mud and 
water, had no footways, but broke off abruptly at the doers. 
The kennel, to make amends, ran down the middle of the 
street—when it ran at all: which was only after heavy rains, 
and^then it ran,* by many eccentric fits, into the houses. 
Across the streets, at wide intervals, one clumsy lamp was 
slung by a rope and pulley; at night, when the lamplighter 
had let these down, and lighted, and hoisted them again, 
a feeble grove of dim wicks swung in a sickly manner over¬ 
head, as if they were at sea. Indeed they were at sea, and 
the ship and crew were in peril of tempest. 






THE WINE-SHOP 


85 


For, the time was to come, when the gaunt scarecrows of 
that region should have watched the lamplighter, in their 
idleness and hunger, so long, as to conceive the idea of im¬ 
proving on his method, and hauling up men by those ropes 
and pulleys, to flare upon the darkness of their condition. 
But, the time was not come yet; and every wind that blew 
over France shook the rags of the scarecrows in vain, for the 
| birds ’ fine in son g and feather, took no warning, 
j . The wine-shop was a corner shop, better than most others 
| in its appearance.and degree, and the master of the wine-shop 
\ had stood outside it, in a yellow waistcoat and green breeches, 
looking on at the struggle for the lost wine. “It's, not my 
affair/’ said he, with a final shrug of the shoulders. “The 
i P eo pl e from the market did it. Let them bring another.” 
There, his eyes happening to catch the tall joker writing 
up his joke, he called to him across the way: 

“Say, then, my Gaspard, what do you do there?” 

The fellow pointed to his joke with immense significance, 
as is often the way with his tribe. It missed its mark, and 
completely failed, as is often the way with his tribe too. 

“What now? Are you a subject for the mad hospital?’’ 
said the wine-shop keeper, crossing the road, and obliterating 
the jest with a handful of mud, picked up for the purpose, 
and smeared over it. “Why do you write in the public streets ? 
Is there tell me thou is there no other place to write such 
words in?” 

In his expostulation he dropped his cleaner hand (perhaps 
accidently, perhaps not) upon the joker’s heart. The joker 
rapped it with his own, took a nimble spring upward, and 
came down in a fantastic dancing attitude, with one of his 
stained shoes jerked off his foot into his hand, and held out. 

A joker of an extremely, not to say wolfishly practical, char¬ 
acter, he looked, under those circumstances. 


86 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


j 

“Put it on, put it on,” said the other. “Call wine, wine; f 
and finish there.” With that advice, he wiped his soiled , 
hand upon the joker’s dress, such as it was—quite deliberately, . 
as having dirtied the hand on his account; and then re-crossed ] 
the road and entered the wine-shop. L 

This wine-shop keeper was a bull-necked, martial-loo ing J 
man of thirty, and he should have been of a hot temperament f 
for, although it was a bitter day, he wore no coat, but came 
one slung over his shoulder. His shirt-sleeves were rolled [■ 
up, too, and his brown arms were bare to the elbows. Nei¬ 
ther did he wear anything more on his head than his own 
crisply-curling short dark hair. He was a dark man alto- 
gether, with good eyes and a good bold breadth between them. 
Good-humoured looking on the whole, but implacable look¬ 
ing too; evidently a man of a strong resolution and a set pur- | 
pose; a man not desirable to be met, rushing down a narrow ; 
pass with a gulf on either side, for nothing would turn the 

man. ,.ii t 

Madame Defarge, his wife, sat in the shop behind the coun- 
ter as he came in. Madame Defarge was a stout woman of 
his own age, with a watchful eye that seldom seemed to look 
at anything, a large hand heavily ringed, a steady face, strong | 
features, and great composure of manner. There was a char- 
i acter about Madame Defarge, from which one might have 
predicated that she did not often make mistakes against 
herself in any of the reckonings over which she presided, 
Madame Defarge being sensitive to cold, was wrapped m ; 
fur, and had a quantity of bright shawl twined about her ■ 
head, though not to the concealment of her large ear-1 
rings. Her knitting was before her, but she had laid it. 
down to pick her teeth with a toothpick. Thus engaged, | 
with her right elbow supported by her left band, Madame, 
Defarge said nothing when her lord came in. but coughed 



THE WINE-SHOP 


87 


; j us t one grain of cough. This, in combination with the lift- 
j ing of her darkly defined eyebrows over her toothpick by the 
breadth of a line, suggested to her husband that he would do 
j well to look round the shop among the customers, for any 
new customer who had dropped in while he stepped over the 
n way. 

I The wine-shop keeper accordingly rolled his eyes about, 

,| until they rested upon an elderly gentleman and a young 
J lady, who were seated in a corner. Other company were 
: there: two playing cards, two playing dominoes, three stand- 
1, ing by the counter lengthening out a short supply of wine. 

J As he passed behind the counter, he took notice that the 
j elderly gentleman said in a look to the young lady, “This is 
our man.” 

r <f What the devil do you do in that galley there?” said Mon- 
( sieur Defarge to himself; “I don’t know you.” 

But, he feigned not to notice the two strangers, and fell 
into discourse with the triumvirate of customers who were 
drinking at the counter. 

“How goes it, Jacques?” said one of these three to Mon¬ 
sieur Defarge. “Is all the spilt wine swallowed?” 

“Every drop, Jacques,” answered Monsieur Defarge. 

When this interchange of Christian name was effected, 
Madame Defarge, picking her teeth with her toothfnck, 
coughed another grain of cough, and raised her eyebrows 
by the breadth of another line. 

“It is not often,” said the second of the three, addressing 
Monsieur Defarge, “that many of these miserable beasts 
know the taste of wine, or of anything but black bread and 
death. Is it not so, Jacques?” 

“It is so, Jacques,” Monsieur Defarge returned. 

At this second interchange of the Christian name, Madame 
Defarge, still using her toothpick with profound composure, . 




A TALE OF TWO CITIES 

coughed another grain of cough, and raised her eyebrows by 
the breadth of another line. | 

The last of the three now said his say, as he put down his 
empty drinking vessel and smacked his lips. 

“Ah! So much the worse! A bitter taste it is that such; 
poor cattle always have in their mouths, and hard lives they 
live, Jacques. Am I right, Jacques?” 

“You are right, Jacques,” was the response of Monsieur 
Defarge. 

This third interchange of the Christian name was completed 
at the moment when Madame Defarge put her toothpick by, 
kept her eyebrows up, and slightly rustled in her seat. 

“Hold then! True!” muttered her husband. “Gentle¬ 
men—my wife!” 

The three customers pulled off their hats to Madame De¬ 
farge with three flourishes. She acknowledged their homage 
by bending her head, and giving them a quick look. Then 
she glanced in a casual manner round the wine-shop, took up 
her knitting with great apparent calmness and repose of 
spirit, and became absorbed in it. 

“Gentlemen,” said her husband, who had kept his bright 
eye observantly upon her, “good day. The chamber, fur¬ 
nished bachelor-fashion, that you wished to see, and were 
inquiring for when I stepped out, is on the fifth floor. The 
doorway of the staircase gives on the little court-yard close 
to the left here,” pointing with his hand, “near to the window 
of my establishment. But, now that I remember, one of 
.you has already been there, and can show the way. Gentle- j 
men, adieu!” 

They paid for their wine, and left the place. The eyes of; 
Monsieur Defarge were studying his wife at her knitting when 
the elderly gentleman advanced from his corner, and begged' 
the favour of a word. 



THE WINE-SHOP 


89 


Willingly, sir, said Monsieur Defarge, and quietly step 1 
ped with him to the door. 

Their conference was very short, but very decided. Al¬ 
most at the first word, Monsieur Defarge started and became 
deeply attentive. It had not lasted a minute, when he nod¬ 
ded and went out. The gentleman then beckoned to the 
young lady, and they, too, went out. Madame Defarge 
knitted with nimble fingers and steady eyebrows, and saw 
nothing. 

Mr. Jarvis Lorry and Miss Manette, emerging from the 
wine-shop thus, joined Monsieur Defarge in the doorway to 
which he had directed his other company just before. It 
opened from a stinking little black court-yard, and was the 
general public entrance to a great pile of houses, inhabited 
by a great number of people. In the gloomy tile~paved entry 
to the gloomy tile-paved staircase, Monsieur Defarge bent 
down on one knee to the child of his old master, and put her 
hand to his lips. It was a gentle action, but not at all gently 
done; a very remarkable transformation had come over him 
in a few seconds. He had no good-humour in his face, nor 
any openness of aspect left, but had become a secret, angry, 
dangerous man. 

“It is very high; it is a little difficult. Better to begin slow¬ 
ly” Thus, Monsieur Defarge, in a stern voice, to Mr. Lorry, 
as they began ascending the stairs. 

“Is he alone?” the latter whispered. 

“Alone 1 God help him, who should be with him I” said the 
other, in the same low voice. 

“Is he always alone, then?” 

“Yes.” 

“Of his own desire?” 

“Of his own necessity. As he was, when I first saw him 
after they found me and demanded to know if I would take 


90 


A. TALE OF TWO CITIES 


him, and, at my peril be discreet-as he was then—so he is 
now.” 

“He is greatly changed?” 

“Changed!” 

The keeper of the wine-shop stopped to strike the wall 
with his hand, and mutter a tremendous curse. No direct 
answer could have been half so forcible. Mr. Lorry’s spirits 
grew heavier and heavier, as he and his two companions as- 

cended higher and higher. . < ' 

Such a staircase, with its accessories, in the older and 
more crowded parts of Paris, would be bad enough now; . 
but, at that time, it was vile indeed to unaccustomed and 
unhardened senses. Every little habitation within the great 
foul nest of one high building—that is to say, the room or 
rooms within every door that opened on the general stair¬ 
case-left its own heap of refuse on its own landing, besides 
flinging other refuse from its own windows. The uncontroll¬ 
able and hopeless mass of decomposition so engendered, 
would have polluted the air, even if poverty and depriva- 
tion had not loaded it with their intangible impurities; the 
two bad sources combined made it almost insupportable. 
Through such an atmosphere, by a steep dark shaft of dirt 
and poison, the way lay. Yielding to his own disturbance ■ 
of mind, and to his young companion’s agitation, which be¬ 
came greater every instant, Mr. Jarvis Lorry twice stopped 
to rest. Each of these stoppages was made at a doleful grat¬ 
ing, by which any languishing good airs that were left un¬ 
corrupted, seemed to escape, and all spoilt and sickly vapours 
seemed to crawl in. Through the rusted bars, tastes, rather 
than glimpses, were caught of the jumbled neighbourhood; 
and nothing within range, nearer or lower than the summits 
of the two great towers of Notre-Dame, had any promise 
on it of healthy life or wholesome aspirations. 



THE WINE-SHOP 


91 


At last, the top of the staircase was gained, and they stopped 
for the third time. There was yet an upper staircase, of a 
steeper inclination and of contracted dimensions, to be ascend¬ 
ed, before the garret story was reached. The keeper of the 
wine-shop, always going a little in advance, and always going 
on the side which Mr. Lorry took, as though he dreaded to be 
asked any question by the young lady, turned himself about 
here, and, carefully feeling in the pockets of the coat he car¬ 
ried over his shoulder, took out a key. 

“The door is locked then, my friend?” said Mr. Lorry, sur¬ 
prised. 

“Ay. Yes,” was the grim reply of Monsieur Defarge. 

“You think it necessary to keep the unfortunate gentleman 
so retired?” 

“I think it necessary to turn the key.” Monsieur Defarge 
whispered it closer in his ear, and frowned heavily. 

“Why?” 

“Why! Because he has lived so long, locked up, that he 
| would be frightened—rave—tear himself to pieces—die— 

| come to I know not what harm—if his door was left 
open.” 

[ “Is it possible!” exclaimed Mr. Lorry. 

I “Is it possible!” repeated Defarge, bitterly. “Yes. And 
a beautiful world we live in, when it is possible, and when 
! many other such things are possible, and not only possible, 
but done—done, see you!—under that sky there, every day. 
Long live the Devil. Let us go on.” 

This dialogue had been held in so very low a whisper, that 
not a word of it had reached the young lady’s ears. But, by 
this time she trembled under such strong emotion, and her 
face expressed such deep anxiety, and, above all, such dread 
and terror, that Mr. Lorry felt it incumbent on him to speak 
a word or two of reassurance. 




92 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


^Courage, dear miss I Courage! Business! The worst 
trill bdover in a moment; it is but passing the room-door, and 
the worst is over. Then, all the good you bring to him, all 
the relief, all the happiness you bring to him, begin. Let our 
good friend here, assist you on that side. That’s well, friend 
Defarge. Come, now. Business, business!” 

They went up slowly and softly. The staircase was short, 
and they were soon at the top. There, as it had an abrupt 
turn in it, they came all at once in sight of three men, whose 
heads were bent down close together at the side of a door, and 
who were intently looking into the room to which the door 
belonged, through some chinks or holes in the wall. On hear¬ 
ing footsteps close at hand, these three turned, and rose, and 
showed themselves to be the three of one name who had been 
drinking in the wine-shop. 

“I forgot them in the surprise of your visit,” explained 
Monsieur Defarge. “Leave us, good boys; we have business . 
here.” 

The three glided by, and went silently down. 

There appearing to be no other door on that floor, and the 
keeper of the wine-shop going straight to this one when they 
were left alone, Mr. Lorrv asked him in a whisper, with a little 
anger: 

“Do you make a show of Monsieur Manette?” 

“I show him, in the way you have seen, to a chosen 
few.” 

“Is that well.” 

“7 think it is well.” 

“Who are the few? How do you choose them?” 

“I choose them as real men, of my name—Jacques is my 
name—to whom the sight is likely to do good. Enough; you 
are English; that is another thing. Stay there, if you please, 
a little moment.” 




THE WINE-SHOP 


93 


With an admonitory gesture to keep them back, he stooped, 
and looked in through the crevice in the wall. Soon raising 
his head again, he struck twice or thrice upon the door—evi¬ 
dently with no other object than to make a noise there. With 
the same intention he drew the key across it three or four 
times, before he put it clumsily into the lock, and turned it as 
heavily as he could. 

The door slowly opened inward under his hand, and he 
looked into the room and said something. A faint voice an¬ 
swered something. Little more than a single syllable could 
have been spoken on either side. 

He looked back over his shoulder, and beckoned them to 
enter. Mr. Lorry got his arm securely around the daughter’s 
waist, and held her; for he felt that she was sinking. 

— a —a—business, business!” he urged, with a moisture* 
that was not of business shining on his cheek. “Come in, 
come in!” 

“I am afraid of it,” she answered, shuddering. 

I “Of it? What?” 

“I mean of him. Of my father.” 

Rendered in a manner desperate, by her state and by the 
beckoning of their conductor, he drew over his neck the arm 
that shook upon his shoulder, lifted her a little, and hurried 
her into the room. He set her down just within the door, and 
held her, clinging to him. 

- Defarge drew out the key, closed the door, locked it on the 
inside, took out the key again, and held it in his hand. All 
this he did, methodically, and with as loud and harsh an am 
companiment of noise as he could make. Finally, he walked 
across the room with a measured tread to where the window 
was. He stopped there, and faced round. 

The garret, built to be a depository for firewood and the 
like, was dim and dark: for the window of dormer shape, was 



94 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


m truth a door in the roof, with a little crane over it for the 
hoisting up of stores from the street: unglazed, and closing up 
the middle in two pieces, like any other door of French con¬ 
struction. To exclude the cold, one half of this door was fast 
closed, and the other was opened but a very little way. Such 
a scanty portion of light was admitted through these means, 
that it was difficult, on first coming in, to see anything; and 
long habit alone could have slowly formed in any one, the 
ability to do any work requiring nicety in such obscurity, j 

Yet, work of that kind was being done in the garret; for, with 

his back towards the door, and his face towards the window 
where the keeper of the wine-shop stood looking at him, a 
white-haired man sat on a low bench, stooping forward and 
very busy, making shoes. 




CHAPTER VI. 

THE SHOEMAKER 

‘ Good day!” said Monsieur Defarge, looking down at the 
white head that bent low over the shoemaking. 

It was raised for a moment, and a very faint voice responded 
to the salutation, as if it were at a distance: 

“Good day!” 

“You 'are still hard at work, I see?” 

After a long silence, the head was lifted for another mo¬ 
ment, and the voice replied, “Yes—I am working.” This 
time, a pair of haggard eyes had looked at the questioner, be¬ 
fore the face had dropped again. 

The faintness of the voice was pitiable and dreadful. It 
was not the faintness of physical weakness, though confine¬ 
ment and hard fare no doubt had their part in it. Its deplor¬ 
able peculiarity was, that it was the faintness of solitude and 
disuse. It was like the last feeble echo of a sound made long 
and long ago. So entirely had it lost the life and resonance 
of the human voice, that it affected the senses like a once 
beautiful colour faded away into a poor weak stain. So 
sunken and suppressed it was, that it was like a voice un¬ 
derground. So expressive it was, of a hopeless and lost crea¬ 
ture, that a famished traveller, wearied out by lonely wan¬ 
dering in a wilderness, would have remembered home and 
friends in such a tone before lying down to die. 

Some minutes of silent work had passed: and the haggard 
eyes had looked up again: not with any interest or curiosity, 
but with a dull mechanical perception, beforehand, that the 
spot where the only visitor they were aware of had stood, was 
not yet empty. 


96 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“I want,” said Defarge, who had not removed his gaze from 
the shoemaker, “to let in a little more light here. You can 
bear a little more?” 

The shoemaker stopped his work; looked with a vacant 
air of listening, at the floor on one side of him; then similarly, 
at the floor on the other side of him; then, upward at the 
speaker. 

“What did you say?” 

“You can bear a little more light? 

“I must bear it, if you let it in.” (Laying the palest shad¬ 
ow of a stress upon the second word.) 

The opened half-door was opened a little further, and se¬ 
cured at that angle for the time. A broad ray of light fell 
into the garret, and showed the workman with an unfinished 
shoe upon his lap, pausing in his labour. His few common 
tools and various scraps of leather were at his feet and on his j 
bench. He had a white beard, raggedly cut, but not very 
long, a hollow face, and exceedingly bright eyes. The hollow- j 
ness and thinness of his face would have caused them to look 
large, under his yet dark eyebrows and his confused white 
hair, though they had been really otherwise; but, they were 
naturally large, and looked unnaturally so. His yellow rags 
of shirt lay open at the throat, and showed his body to be 
withered and worn. He, and his old canvas frock, and his 
loose stockings, and all his poor tatters of clothes, had, in a 
long seclusion from direct light and air, faded down to such a 
dull uniformity of parchment-yellow, that it would have been 
hard to say which was which. 

He had put up a hand between his eyes and the light, and 
the very bones of it seemed transparent. So he sat, with a 
steadfastly vacant gaze, pausing in his work. He never 
looked at the figure before him, without first looking down on 
this side of himself, then on that, as if he had lost the habit of 



THE SHOEMAKER 


97 


associating place with sound; he never spoke, without first 
wandering in this manner, and forgetting to speak. 

“Are you going to finish that pair of shoes to-day?” asked 
Defarge, motioning toMr. Lorry to come forward. 

“What did you say?”. 

“Do you mean to finish that pair of shoes to-day?” 

“I can’t say that I mean to. I suppose so. I don’t know.” 
Bui, the question reminded him of his work, and he bent 
over it again. 

Mr. Lorry came silently forward, leaving the daughter by 
the door. When he had stood, for a minute or two, by the 
side of Defarge, the shoemaker looked up. He showed no 
surprise at seeing anothef- figure, but the unsteady fingers of 
one of his hands strayed to his lips as he looked at it (his lips 
and his nails were of the same pale lead-colour), and then the 
hand dropped to his work, and he once more bent over the 
shoe. The look and the action had occupied but an instant. 
“You have a visitor, you see,” said Monsieur Defarge. 
“What did you say?” 

“Here is a visitor.” 

The shoemaker looked up as before, but without removing 
a hand from his work. 

“Come!” said Defarge. “Here is monsieur, who knows a 
well-made shoe when he sees one. Show him that shoe you 
are WQrking at. Take it, monsieur.” 

Mr. Lorry took itin his hand. 

“Tell monsieur what kind of shoe it is, and the maker’s 
name.” 

There was a longer pause than usual, before the shoemaker 
replied: 

“I forget what it was you asked me. What did you say?” 
“I said, couldn’t you describe the kind of shoe, for mon¬ 
sieur's information?” 


98 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“It is a lady’s shoe. It is a young lady’s walking-shoe. I> • 
is in the present mode. I never saw the mode. I have had a 
pattern in my hand.” He glanced at the shoe with some lit- 

tie passing touch of pride. 

“And the maker’s name?” said Defarge. 

Now that he had no work to hold, he laid the knuckles o 
the right hand in the hollow of the left, and then the knuckles 
of the left in the hollow of the right, and then passed a hand 
across his bearded chin, and so on in regular changes, without 
a moment’s intermission. The task of recalling him from the , 
vacancy into which he always sank when he had spoken, was 
like recalling some very weak person from a swoon, or endeav- 
ouring, in the hope of some disclosure, to stay the spirit of a 

fast-dying man. 

“Did you ask me for my name? 

“Assuredly I did.” 

“One Hundred and Five, NorthTower.” 

“Is that all?” 

“One Hundred and Five, NorthTower. 

With a weary sound that was not a sigh, nor a groan, he - 
bent to work rgain, until the silence was again broken. 

“You are not a shoemaker by trade?” saidMr. Lorry, look¬ 
ing steadfastly at him. 

His haggard eyes turned to Defarge as if he would have 
transferred the question to him: but as no help came from 
that quarter, they turned back on. the questioner when they ( 
had sought the ground. 

“I am not a shoemaker by trade? No, I was not a shoe- . 
maker by trade. I—I learnt it here. I taught myself. I 

asked leave to—” I 

He lapsed away, even for minutes, ringing those measured 
changes on his hands the whole time. His eyes came slowly 
back^at last, to the face from which they had wandered; when; 




THE SHOEMAKER 


99 


they rested on it, he started, and resumed, in the manner of a 
sleeper that moment awake, reverting to a subject of last 

night. 

“I asked leave to teach myself, and I got it with much diffi- 
culty after a long while, and I have made shoes ever since.” 

As he held out his hand for the shoe that had been taken 
from him,Mr. Lorry said, still looking steadfastly in his face: 

“Monsieur Manette, do you remember nothing of me?" 

The shoe dropped to the ground, and he sat looking fixedly 
at the questioner. 

“Monsieur ManetteMr. Lorry laid his hand upon De- 
| farge's arm; “do you remember nothing of this man? Look 
I him. Look at me. Is there no old banker, no old business, 
no old servant, no old time, rising in your mind, Monsieur 
Manette?” 

As the captive of many years sat looking fixedly, by turns, 
at Mr. Lorry and at Defarge, some long obliterated marks of 
| an actively intent intelligence in the middle of the forehead, 
gradually forced themselves through the black mist that had 
fallen on him. They were overclouded again, they were 
fainter, they were gone; but they had been there. And so ex¬ 
actly was the expression repeated on the fair young face of her 
who had crept along the wall to a point where she could see 
him, and where she now stood looking at him, with hands 
which at first had been only raised in frightened compassion, 
if not even to keep him off and shut out the sight of him, but 
which were now extending towards him, trembling with eager¬ 
ness to lay the spectral face upon her warm young breast, and 
love it back to life and hope—so exactly was the expression 
repeated (though in stronger characters) on her fair young 
face, that it looked as though it had passed like a moving 
light, from him to her. 

Darkness had fallen on him in its place. He looked at the 





100 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


two, less and less attentively, and his eyes in gloomy abstrac¬ 
tion sought the ground and looked about him in the old way. 
Finally, with a deep long sigh, he took the shoe up, and re- 
sumed his work. 

“Have you recognised him, monsieur?” asked Defarge in a 
whisper. 

“Yes; for a moment. At first I thought it quite hopeless, 
but I have unquestionably seen, for a single moment, the face 
that I once knew so well. Hush! Let us draw further back. 
Hush!” 

She had moved from the wall of the garret, very near to the 
bench on which he sat. There was something awful in his 
unconsciousness of the figure that could have put out its hand 
and touched him as he stooped over his labour. 

’ Not a word was spoken, not a sound was made. She stood, 
like a spirit, beside him, and he bent over his work. 

It happened, at length, that he had occasion to change the 
instrument in his hand, for his shoemaker s Knife. It lay J 
on that side of him which was not the side on which she stood. 
He had taken it up, and was stooping to work again, when his 
eyes caught the skirt of her dress. He raised them, and saw 
her face. The two spectators started forward, but she stayed 
them with a motion of her hand. She had no fear of his strik¬ 
ing at her with the knife, though they had. 

He stared at her with a fearful look, and after a while his 
lips began to form some words, though no sound proceeded 
from them. By degrees, in the pauses of his quick and la¬ 
boured breathing, he was heard to say: 

“What is this?” 

With the tears streaming down her face, she put her two 
hands to her lips, and kissed them to him; then clasped them 
on her breast, as if she laid his ruined head there. 

“You are not the gaolers daughter?” 



THE SHOEMAKER 


101 


She sighed “No.” 

“Who are you?” 

Not yet trusting the tones of her voice, she sat down on the 
bench beside him. He recoiled, but she laid her hand upon 
his arm. A strange thrill struck him when she did so, and 
visibly passed over his frame; he laid the knife down softly, as 
he sat staring at her. 

Her golden hair, which she wore in long curls, had been 
hurriedly pushed aside, and fell down over her neck. Advanc¬ 
ing his hand by little and little, he took it up and looked at it 
In the midst of the action he went astray, and, with another 
deep sigh, fell to work at his shoemaking. 

But not for long. Releasing his arm, she laid her hand up¬ 
on his shoulder. After looking doubtfully at it, two or three 
times, as if to be sure that it was really there, he laid down 
his work, put his hand to his neck, and took off a blackened 
string with a scrap of folded rag attached to it. He opened 
this, carefully, on his knee, and it contained a very little quan¬ 
tity of hair: not more than one or two long golden hairs, which 
he had, in some ol d day, wound off upon his finger. 

He took her hair into his hand again, and looked closely 
at it. “It is the same. How can it be! When was it! How 
was it!” 

As the concentrating expression returned to his forehead, 
he seemed to become conscious that it was in hers too. He 
turned her full to the light, and looked at her. 

“She had laid her head upon my shoulder, that night when 
I was summoned out—she had a fear of my going, though I 
had none—and when I was brought to the North Tower they 
found these upon my sleeve. ‘You will leave me them? 
They can never help me to escape in the body, though they 
may in the spirit.’ Those were the words I said. I remem¬ 
ber them very well.” 





102 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


He formed this speech with his lips many times before he 
could utter it. But when he did find spoken words for it. 
they came to him coherently, though slowly. 

“How was this ?—Was it you ?'’ 

Once more, the two spectators started, as he turned upon 
her with a frightful suddenness. But she sat perfectly sti in 
his grasp, and only said, in a low voice, “I entreat you, good 
gentlemen, do not come near us, do not speak, do not move, 

“Hark!” he exclaimed. “Whose voice was that? 

His hands released her as he uttered this cry, and went up 
to his white hair, which they tore in a frenzy. It died out, 
as everything but his shoemaking did die out of him, and he 
refolded his little packet and tried to secure it in his breast; 
but he still looked at her, and gloomily shook his head. 

“No, no, no; you are too young, too blooming. It can t be» 
See what the prisoner is. These are not the hands she knew, 
this is not the face she knew, this is not a voice she ever heard. 
No, no. She was—and He was—before the slow years of the 
North Tower—ages ago. What is your name, my gentle 
angel?” 

Hailing his softened tone and manner, his daughter fell up¬ 
on her knees before him, with her appealing hands upon his 


breast. 

“O, sir, at another time you shall know my name, and who 
my mother was, and who my father, and how I never knew 
their hard, hard history. But I cannot tell you at this time, 
and I cannot tell you here. All that I may tell you, here and 
now, is that I pray to you to touch me and to bless me. Kiss 
me, kiss me! O my dear, my dear!” 

His cold white head mingled with her radiant hair, which 
warmed and lighted it as though it were the light of Freedom 
shining on him. 

“If you hear in my voice—I don’t know that it is so, but I 




THE SHOEMAKER 


103 


hope it is if you hear in my voice any resemblance to a voice 
that once was sweet music in your ears, weep for it, weep for 
it! If you touch, in touching my hair, anything that recalls 
a beloved head that lay on your breast when you were young 
and free, weep for it, weep for it! If, when I hint to you of a 
Home that is before us, where I will be true to you with all 
my duty and with all my faithful service, I bring back the 
remembrance of a Home long desolate, while your poor heart 
pined away, weep for it, weep for it !” 

She held him closer round the neck, and rocked him on her 
breast like a child. 

“If, when I tell you, dearest dear, that your agony is over, 
and that I have come here to take you from it, and that 
we go to England to be at peace and at rest, I cause you 
to think of your useful life laid waste, and of our native 
France so wicked to you, weep for it, weep for it! And if, 
when I shall tell you of my name, and of my father who is 
living, and of my mother who is dead, you learn that I have 
to kneel to my honoured father, and implore his pardon for 
having never for his sake striven all day and lain awake and 
wept all night, because the love of my poor mother hid his 
torture from me, weep for it, weep for it! Weep for her, then, 
and for me! Good gentlemen, thank God! I feel his sacred 
tears upon my f.ace, and his sobs strike against my heart. 
O, see! Thank God for us, thank God!” 

He had sunk in her arms, and his face dropped on her breast, 
a sight so touching, yet so terrible in the tremendous wrong 
and suffering which had gone before it, that the two beholders 
covered their faces. 

When the quiet of the garret had been long undisturbed, 
and his heaving breast and shaken form had long yielded to 
the calm that must follow all storms—emblem to humanity, 
of the rest and silence into which the storm called Life must 


104 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


hush at last—they came forward to raise the father and daugh¬ 
ter from'the ground. He had gradually dropped to the floor, 
and lay there in a lethargy, worn out. She had nestled down 
with him, that his head might lie upon her arm; and her hair 
drooping over him curtained him from the light. 

“If, without disturbing ■him,” she said, raising her hand to ^ 
Mr. Lorry as he stooped over them, after repeated blowings 
of his nose, “all could be arranged for our leaving Pans at 
once, so that, from the very door, he could be takSn away—” 

“But, consider. Is he fit for the journey?” asked Mr. 
Lorry. 

“More fit for that, I think, than to remain in this city, so 
dreadful to him.” 

“It is true,” said Defarge, who was kneeling to look on and 
hear. “More than that;MonsieurManette is, for all reasons, 
best out of France. Say, shall I hire a carriage and post- 
horses?” 

, “That’s business,” saidMr. Lorry, resuming on the shortest 
notice his methodical manners; “and if business is to be done, 

1 had better do it.” 

“Then be so kind,” urged Miss Manette, “as to leave us 
here. You see how composed he has become, and you cannot 
be afraid to leave him with me now. Why should you be? 

If you will lock the door to secure us from interruption, I do 
not doubt that you will find him, when you come back, as 
quiet as you leave him. In any case, I will take care of him 
until you return, and then we will remove him straight.” 

Both Mr. Lorry and Defarge were rather disinclined to this 
course, and in favour of one of them remaining. But, as 
there were not only carriage and horses to be seen to, but 
travelling papers; and as time pressed, for the day was draw¬ 
ing to an end, it came at last to their hastily dividing the bus¬ 
iness that was necessary to be done, and hurrying away to 
ub it. 





THE SHOEMAKER 105 

Then, as the darkness closed in, the daughter laid her head 
^lown on the nard ground close at the father’s side, and 
watched him. The darkness deepened and deepened, and 
they both lay quiet, until a light gleamed through the chinks 
in the wall. 

Mr. Lorry and Monsieur Defarge had made all ready foi 
the journey, and had brought with them, besides travelling 
cloaks and wrappers, bread and meat, wine, and hot coffee. 
Monsieur Defarge put this provender, and the lamp he carried, 
on the shoemaker’s bench (there was nothing else in the garret 
but a pallet bed), and he and Mr. Lorry roused the captive, 
and assisted him to his feet. 

No human intelligence could have read the mysteries of his 
mind, in the scared, blank wonder of his face. Whether he 
knew what had happened, whether he recollected what they 
had said to him, whether'he knew that he was free, were 
questions which no sagacity could have solved. They tried 
speaking to him; but, he was so confused, and so very slow to 
answer, that they took fright at his bewilderment, and agreed 
for the time to tamper with him no more. He had a wild, 
lost manner of occasionally clasping his head in his hands, 
that had not been seen in him before; yet, he had some pleas¬ 
ure in the mere sound of his daughter’s voice, and invariably 
turned to it when she spoke. 

In the submissive way of one long accustomed to obey under 
coercion, he ate and drank what they gave him to eat and 
drink, and put on the cloak and other wrappings, that they 
gave him to wear. He readily responded to his daughter’s 
drawing her arm through his, and took—and kept—her hand 
in both his own. 

They began to descend;Monsieur Defarge going first with 
the lamp, Mr. Lorry closing the little procession. They haa 
not traversed many steps of the long main staircase when he 




106 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Stopped, and stared at the roof and round at the walls. 

“You remember the place, my father? You remember 
coming up here?” 

“What did you say?” 

But, before she could repeat the question, he murmured an 
answer as if she had repeated it. 

“Remember? No, I don’t remember. It was so very long 

ago” 

That he had no recollection whatever of his having been 
brought from his prison to that house, was apparent to them. 
They heard him mutter, “One Hundred and Five, North 
Tower;” and when he looked about him, it evidently was for 
the strong fortress-w r alls which had long encompassed him. On 
their reaching the court-yard he instinctively altered his tread, 
as being in expectation of a drawbridge; and when there was j 
no drawbridge, and he saw the carriage waiting in the open 
street, he dropped his daughter’s hand and clasped his head 
again. 

No crowd was about the door; no people were discernible at 
any of the many windows; not even a chance passer-by was 
in the street. An unnatural silence and desertion reigned 
there. Only one soul was to be seen, and that was Madame 
Defarge—who leaned against the door-post, knitting, and saw 
nothing. 

The prisoner had got into a coach, and his daughter had 
followed him, when Mr. Lorry’s feet were arrested on the step 
by his asking, miserably, for his shoemaking tools and the 
unfinished shoes. Madame Defarge immediately called to 
her husband that she would get them, and went, knitting, 
out of the lamplight, through the court-yard. She quickly 
brought them down and handed them in;—and immediately 
afterwards leaned against the door-post, knitting, and saw 
nothing. 





THE SHOEMAKER 


10 ? 


> -Defarge got upon the box. and gave the word “To the Bar¬ 
rier ! M The postilion cracked his whip, and they clattered 
away under the feeble over-swinging lamps. 

Under the over-swinging lamps—swinging ever brightei 
in the better streets, and ever dimmer in the worse—and by 
lighted shops, gay crowds, illuminated coffee-houses t and 
theatre-doors, to one of the city gates. Soldiers with lan¬ 
terns, at the guard-house there. “Your papers, travellers !” 
See here then. Monsieur the Officer/’ said Defarge, getting 
down, and taking him gravely apart, “these are the papers ol 
monsieur inside, with the white head. They were consigned 
to me, with him, at the —.” He dropped his voice, there was 
a flutter among the military lanterns, and one of them being 
handed into the coach by an arm in uniform, the eyes con¬ 
nected with the arm looked, not an every-day or an every- 
night look, at monsieur with the white head. “It is well. 
Forward!” from the uniform. “Adieu!” from Defarge. And 
so, under a short grove of feebler and feebler over-swinging 
lamps, out under the great grove of stars. 

Beneath that arch ol unmoved and eternal lights; some so 
remote from this little earth that the learned tell us it is doubt¬ 
ful whether their rays have even yet discovered it, as a point 
in space where anything is suffered or done: the shadows of 
the night were broad and black. All through the cold and 
restless interval, until dawn, they once more whispered in the 
ears of Mr. Jarvis Lorry—sitting opposite the buried man who 
had been dug out, and wondering what subtle powers were 
forever lost to him, and wffiat w T ere capable of restoration— 
the old inquiry: 

“I hope you care to be recalled to life?” 

And the old answer: 

“I can't say.” 

THE END OF THE FIRST BOOK. 


BOOK THE SECOND. THE GOLDEN 
THREAD 

CHAPTER I. 

FIVE YEARS LATER 

Te-Ison’s 1 Bank by Temple Bar was an old-fashioned place, 

% veri in the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty. It 
was very small, very dark, very ugly, very incommodious 
It was an old-fashioned place, moreover, in the moral attri¬ 
bute that the partners in the House were proud of its small¬ 
ness, proud of its darkness, proud of its ugliness, proud of its 
incommodiousness. They were even boastful of its eminence 
in those particulars, and were fired by an express conviction 
that, if it were less objectionable, it would be less respectable. 
This was no passive belief, but an active weapon which they 
flashed at more convenient places of business. Tellson’s 
(they said) wanted no elbow-room, Tellson’s wanted no light. 
Tellson’s wanted no embellishment. Noakes and Co.’s might, 

or Snooks Brothers’ might; butTellson’s, thank Heaven!- 

Any one of these partners would have disinherited his son 
on the question of rebuilding Tellson’s. In this respect the 
House was much on a par with the Country; w T hich did very 
often disinherit its sons for suggesting improvements in laws 
and customs that had long been highly objectionable, but 
were only the more respectable. 

1 For a possible source of the name see Carlyle, History of the French 
Revolution, Part I, Book II, Chap, v, p. 57, where he mentions “Thelusson’s 
Bank." 

The references to pages of Carlyle’s History of the French Revolution 
are based upon the edition in three volumes published by J. M. Dent, Aldine 
House, London, 1897. 


108 



FIVE YEARS EATER 


109 


Thus it had come to pass, that Tellson’s wa# tu*? triumphant 
perfection of inconvenience. After bursting open a door of 
idiotic obstinacy with a weak rattle in its throat, you fell into 
Tellson s down two steps, and came to your senses in a miser¬ 
able little shop, with two little counters, where the oldest of 
men made your cheque shake as if the wind rustled it, while 
they examined the signature by the dingiest of windows, 
which were always under a shower-bath of mud from Fleet 
street, and which were made the dingier by their own iron 
bars proper, and the heavy shadow of Temple Bar. If your 
business necessitated your seeing “the House,” you were put 
into a species of Condemned Hold at the back, where you med¬ 
itated on a misspent life, until the House came with its hands 
in its pockets, and you could hardly blink at it in the dismal 
twilight. Your money came out of, or went into, wormy old 
wooden drawers, particles of which flew up your nose and 
down your throat when they were opened and shut. Your 
bank-notes had a musty odour, as if they were fast decompos¬ 
ing into rags again. Your plate was stowed away among the 
neighbouring cesspools, and evil communications corrupted 
its good polish in a day or two . 1 Your deeds got into extem¬ 
porised strong-rooms made of kitchens and sculleries, and 
fretted all the fat out of their parchments into the banking- 
house air. Your lighter boxes of family papers went up¬ 
stairs into a Barmecide 2 room, that always had a great dining- 
table in it and never had a dinner, and where, even in the 
year one thousand seven hundred and eighty, the first letters 
written to you by your old love, or by your little children, 
were but newly released from the horror of being ogled through 

1 Like Lamb, Diekens enjoyed giving a humorous twist to a quotation. 
Compare p. 119, lines 20-21. Here the reference is to 1 Cor. 15:33. where St. 
Paul quotes from Euripides the aphorism, “Evil communications corrupt 
good manners.’' 

*Read the story of the Barmecide feast in the AraJJan Nights. It is the 
‘Story of the Barber’s Sixth Brother “ 


no 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


the windows, by the heads exposed on Temple Bar with an 
insensate brutality and ferocity worthy of Abyssinia or Ash- 

But indeed, at that time, putting to death was a recipe 
much in vogue with all trades and professions, and not least 
of all with Tellson’s. Death is Nature’s remedy for all things, 
and why not Legislation’s? Accordingly, the forger was put 
to Death; the utterer of a bad note was put to Death; the 
unlawful opener of a letter was put to Death; the purloiner of 
forty shillings and sixpence was put to Death; the holder of a 
horse at Tellson’s door, who made off with it, was put to 
Death; the coiner of a bad shilling was put to Death, the 
sounders of three-fourths of the notes in the whole gamut of 
Crime, were put to Death. Not that it did the least good in 
the way of prevention—it might almost have been woith re¬ 
marking that the fact was exactly the reverse—but, it cleared 
off (as to this world) the trouble of each particular case, and 
left nothing else connected with it to be looked after. Thus, 
Tellson’s, in its day, like greater places of business, its con¬ 
temporaries, had taken so many lives, that, if the heads laid 
low before it had been ranged on Temple Bar instead of being 
privately disposed of, they would probably have excluded 
what little light the ground floor had, in a rather significant 
manner. 

Cramped in all kinds of dim cupboards and hutches at 
Tellson’s, the oldest of men carried on the business gravely. 
When they took a young man into Tellson’s London house, 
they hid him somewhere till he was old. They kept him in a 
dark place, like a cheese, until he had the full Tellson flavour 
and blue-mould upon him. Then only was he permitted to 
be seen, spectacularly poring over large books, and casting his 
breeches and gaiters into the general weight of the establish¬ 
ment. 


FIVE YEARS LATER 


111 


Outside Tellson’s—never by any means in it, unless called 
in—was an odd-job-man, an occasional porter and messenger, 
who served as the live sign of the house. He was never absent 
during business hours, unless upon an errand, and then he was 
represented by his son: a grisly urchin of twelve, who was his 
express image. People understood thatTellson’s, in a stately 
way, tolerated the odd-job-man. The house had always tol¬ 
erated some person in that capacity, and time and tide had 
drifted this person to the post. His surname was Cruncher, 
and on the youthful occasion of his renouncing by proxy the 
works of darkness, in the easterly parish church of Hounds- 
ditch, he had received the added appellation of Jerry. 

The scene was Mr. Cruncher’s private lodging in Hanging* 
sword-alley, Whitefriars: the time, half-past seven of the 
clock on a windy March morning, Anno Domini seventeen 
hundred and eighty. (Mr. Cruncher himself always spoke of 
the year of our Lord as Anna Dominoes: apparently under the 
impression that the Christian era dated from the invention of 
a popular game, by a lady who had bestowed her name upon 
it.) 

Mr. Cruncher’s apartments were not in a savoury neighbour¬ 
hood, and were but two in number, even if a closet with a 
single pane of glass in it might be counted as one. But they 
were very decently kept. Early as it was, on the windy 
March morning, the room in which he lay a-bed was already 
scrubbed throughout; and between the cups and saucers ar¬ 
ranged for breakfast, and the lumbering deal table, a very 
clean white cloth was spread. 

Mr. Cruncher reposed under a patchwork counterpane, like 
a Harlequin 1 at home. At first, he slept heavily, but, by de¬ 
grees, began to roll and surge in bed, until he rose above tne 
surface, with his spiky hair looking as if it must tear the sheets 

i a conventional clown in the old Italian comedy. 


112 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


to ribbons. At which juncture, he exclaimed, in a voice of 
dire exasperation: 

“Bust me. if she ain’t at it agin!” 

A woman of orderly and industrious appearance rose from 
her knees in a corner, with sufficient haste and trepidation to 
show that she was the person referred to. 

“What!” said Mr. Cruncher, looking out of bed for a boot. 
“You’re at it agin, are you?” 

After hailing the morn with this second salutation, he threw 
a boot at the woman as a third. It was a very muddy boot, 
and may introduce the odd circumstance connected with Mr. ( 
Cruncher’s domestic economy, that, whereas he often came , 
home after banking hours with clean'boots, he often got up | 
next morning to find the same boots covered with clay. 

“What,” said Mr. Cruncher, varying his apostrophe after 
missing his mark—“what are you up to, Aggerawayter?” 

“I was only saying my prayers.” 

“Saying your prayers! You’re a nice woman! What do 
you mean by flopping yourself down and praying agin me?” 

“I was not praying against you; I was praying for 
you.” 

“You weren’t. And if you were, I won’t be took the liberty 
with. Here! your mother’s a nice woman, young Jerry, going 
a praying agin your father’s prosperity. Y ou’ve got a dutiful 
mother, you have, my son. You’ve got a religious mother, 
you have, my boy: going and flopping herself down, and pray¬ 
ing that the bread-and-butter may be snatched out of the 
mouth of her only child.” 

Master Cruncher (who was in his shirt) took this very ill, 
and, turning to his mother, strongly deprecated any praying 
away of his personal board. ’ 

“Ard what do you suppose, you conceited female,” said 
yr % /: runc her, with unconscious inconsistency, “that the 



FIVE YEARS LATER 


113 


worth of your prayers may be? Name the price that you put 
your prayers at!” 

1 “They only come from the heart, Jerry. They are worth 
no more than that.” 

“Worth no more than that,” repeated Mr. Cruncher. 
“They ain’t worth much, then. Whether or no, I won’t be 
prayed agin, I tell you. I can’t afford it. I’m not a going to 
be made unlucky by your sneaking. If you must go flopping 
| yourself down, flop in favour of your husband and child, and 
not in opposition to ’em. If I had had any but a unnat’ral 
| wife, and this poor boy had had any but a unnat’ral mother, 
I might have made some money last week instead of being 
counterprayed and countermined and religiously circum- 
wented into the worst of luck. B-u-u-ust me!” said Mr. 
Cruncher, who all this time had been putting on his clothes, 
“if I ain’t, what with piety and one blowed thing and another, 
been choused this last week into as bad luck as ever a poor devil 
of a honest tradesman met with I Young Jerry, dress your¬ 
self, my boy, and while I clean my boots keep a eye upon your 
mother now and then, and if you see any signs of more flop¬ 
ping, give me a call. For, I tell you,” here he addressed his 
wife once more, “I won’t be gone agin, in this manner. I am 
as rickety as a hackneycoach, I’m as sleepy as laudanum, my 
lines is strained to that degree that I shouldn’t know, if it 
wasn’t for the pain in ’em, which was me and which somebody 
else, yet I’m none the better for it in pocket; and it’s my sus¬ 
picion that you’ve been at it from morning to night to prevent 
me from being the better for it in pocket, and I won’t put up 
with it, Aggerawayter, and what do you say now!” 

Growling, in addition, such phrases as “Ah! yes! You’re 
religious, too. You wouldn’t put yourself in opposition to the 
interests of your husband and child, would you? Not you!” 
and throwing off other sarcastic sparks from the whirling 






114 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


grindstone of his indignation, Mr. Cruncher betook him- . 
self to his boot-cleaning and his general preparation for bus- 
iness. In the meantime, his son, whose head was garnished 1 
with tenderer spikes, and whose young eyes stood close by 
one another, as his father’s did, kept the required watch upon 
his mother. He greatly disturbed that poor woman at inter- 
wals, by darting out of his sleeping closet, where he made , 
his toilet, with a suppressed cry of‘“You are going to flop, , 
mother.—Halloa, father!” and, after raising this fictitious 
alarm, darting in again with an undutiful grin. V 

Mr. Cruncher’s temper was not at all improved when he 
came to his breakfast. He resented Mrs. Cruncher’s saying 
^race with particular animosity. JI 

“Now, Aggerawayter! What are you up to? At it [ 


agin?” . „ 

His wife explained that she had merely “asked a blessing. 

“Don’t do it I” said Mr. Cruncher, looking about, as if he j 
rather expected to see the loaf disappear under the efficacy of | 
his wife’s petitions. “I ain’t a going to be blest out of house 
and home. I won’t have my wittles blest off my table. Keep j 

'still!” . # I 

Exceedingly red-eyed and grim, as if he had been up all 
night at a party which had taken anything but a convivial 
turn, Jerry Cruncher worried his breakfast rather than ate it, 
growling over it like any four-footed inmate of a menagerie. 
Towards nine o’clock he smoothed his ruffled aspect, and, 
presenting as respectful and business-like an exterior as he 
could overlay his natural self with, issued forth to the occu¬ 
pation of the day. 

It could scarcely be called a trade, in spite of his favourite 
description of himself as “a honest tradesman.” His stock 
consisted of a wooden stool, made out of a broken-backed 
chah °ut down, which stool, young Jerry, walking at his 


FIVE YEARS LATER 


115 


father’s side, carried every morning to beneath the banking- 
house window that was nearest Temple Bar: where, with the 
addition of the first handful of straw that could be gleaned 
from any passing vehicle to keep the cold and wet from the 
odd-job-man’s feet, it formed the encampment for the day. 
On this post of his, Mr. Cruncher was as well known to Fleet- 
street and the Temple, as the Bar itself,—and was almost as 
ill-looking. 

Encamped at a quarter before nine, in good time to touch 
his three-cornered hat to the oldest of men as they passed in to 
Tellson’s, Jerry took up his station on this windy March morn¬ 
ing, with young Jerry standing by him, when not engaged in 
making forays through the Bar, to inflict bodily and mental 
injuries of an acute description on passing boys who were 
small enough for his amiable purpose. Father and son, ex¬ 
tremely like each other, looking silently on at the morning 
traffic in Fleet-street, with their two heads as near to one an¬ 
other as the two eyes of each were, bore a considerable resem¬ 
blance to a pair of monkeys. The resemblance was not les¬ 
sened by the accidental circumstance, that the mature Jerry 
bit and spat out straw, while the twinkling eyes of the youth¬ 
ful Jerry were as restlessly watchful of him as of everything 
else in Fleet-street. 

The head of one of the regular indoor messengers attached 
to Tellson’s establishment was put through the door, and the 
word was given: 

“Porter wanted!” 

“Hooray, father! Here’s an early job to begin with!” 

Having thus given his parent God speed, young Jerry 
seated himself on the stool, entered on his reversionary inter¬ 
est in the straw his father had been chewing, and cogitated. 

“AJ-ways rusty! His fingers is al-ways rusty!” muttered 
young Jerry. “Where does my father get all that iron rust 
from? He don’t get u-c- iron rust here!” 


CHAPTER II. 

A SIGHT 

“You know the Old Bailey well, no doubt?” said one of the 
oldest of clerks to Jerry the messenger. 

“Ye-es, sir,” returned Jerry, in something of a dogged man 
ner. “I do know the Bailey.” 

“Just so. And you knowMr. Lorry.” 

“I knowMr. Lorry, sir, much better than I know the Bai¬ 
ley. Much better,” said Jerry, not unlike a reluctant witness 
at the establishment in question, “than I, as a honest trades¬ 
man, wish to know r the Bailey.” 

“Very well. Find the door wdiere the witnesses go in, and 
show the door-keeper this note for Mr. Lorry. He will then 
let you in.” 

“Into the court, sir?” 

“Into the courL” 

Mr. Cruncher’s eyes seemed to get a little closer to one an¬ 
other, and to interchange the inquiry, “What do you think 
of this?” 

“Am I to wait in the court, sir?” he asked, as the result of 
that conference. 

“I am going to tell you. The door-keeper will pass the 
note to Mr. Lorry, and do you make any gesture that will at¬ 
tract Mr. Lorry’s attention, and show^ him where you stand. 
Then what you have to do, is, to remain there until he w'ants 
you.” 

“Is that all, sir?” 

“That’s all. He wishes to have a messenger at hand. This 
is to tell him you are there.” 






A SIGHT 


117 


As the ancient clerk deliberately folded and superscribed 
the note, Mr. Cruncher, after surveying him in silence until 
he came to the blotting-paper stage, remarked: 

“I suppose they’ll be trying Forgeries this morning?” 

■ “Treason !” 

“That’s quartering,” said Jerry. “Barbarous!” 

“It is the law,” remarked the ancient clerk, turning his sur* 
i prised spectacles upon him. “It is the law.” 

“It’s hard in the law to spile a man, I think. It’s hard 
. enough to kill him, but it’s wery hard to spile him, sir.” 

• “Not at all,” returned the ancient clerk. “Speak well of 
the law. Take care of your chest and voice, my good friend, 
and leave the law to take care of itself. I give you that ad¬ 
vice.” 

“It’s the damp, sir, what settles on my chest and voice,” 
said Jerry. “I leave you to judge what a damp way of earn¬ 
ing a living mine is.” 

“Well, well,” said the old clerk; “we all have our various 
ways of gaining a livelihood. Some of us have damp ways, 
and some of us have dry ways. Here is the letter. Go along.” 

Jerry took the letter, and, remarking to himself with less 
internal deference than he made an outward show of, “You 
are a lean old one, too,” made his bow, informed his son, in 
passing, of his destination, and went his way. 

They hanged at Tyburn, in those days, so the street out¬ 
side Newgate had not obtained one infamous notoriety that 
has since attached to it. But, the gaol was a vile place, in 
which most kinds of debauchery and villainy were practised, 
and where dire diseases were bred, that came into court with 
the prisoners, and sometimes rushed straight from the dock 
at my Lord Chief Justice himself, and pulled him off the bench. 
It had more than once happened, that the Judge in the black 
cap pronounced his own doom as certainly as the prisoner’s, 


118 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


and even died before him. For the rest, the Old Bailey was 
famous as a kind of deadly inn-yard, from which pale travel¬ 
lers set out continually, in carts and coaches, on a violent pas¬ 
sage into the other world: traversing some two miles and a 
half of public street and road, and shaming few good citizens, 
if any. So powerful is use, and so desirable to be good use m j 
the beginning. It was famous, too, for the pillory, a wise old 
institution, that inflicted a punishment of which no one could 
foresee the extent; also, for the whipping-post, another dear 
old institution, very humanising and softening to behold in 
action; also, for extensive transactions in blood-money, an¬ 
other fragment of ancestral wisdom, systematically leading to 
the most frightful mercenary crimes that could be committed 
under Heaven. Altogether, the Old Bailey, at that date, was 
a choice illustration of the precept, that “Whatever is is 
right;” an aphorism that would be as final as it is lazy, did it 
not include the troublesome consequence, that nothing that 
ever was, was wrong. 

Making his way through the tainted crowd, dispersed up 
and down this hideous scene of action, with the skill of a man 
accustomed to make his way quietly, the messenger found out 
the door he sought, and handed in his letter through a trap in 
it. For people then paid to see the play at the Old Bailey, 
just as they paid to see the play in Bedlam—only the former 
entertainment was much the dearer. Therefore, all the Old 
Bailey doors were well guarded—except, indeed, the social 
doors by which the criminals got there, and those were always 
left wide open. 

After some delay and demur, the door grudgingly turned on 
its hinges a very little way, and allowedMr. Jerry Cruncher t? 
squeeze himself into court. 

“What’s on? ? ’ he asked, in a whisper, of the man he found 
himself next to. 





A SIGHT 


119 


“Nothing yet.” 

“What’s coming on?” 

“The Treason case.” 

“The quartering one, eh?” 

Ah! returned the man, with a relish; “he’ll be drawn on 
a hurdle to be half hanged, and then he’ll be taken down and 
sliced before his own face, and then his inside will be taken out 
and burnt while he looks on, and then his head will be chopped 
off, and he’ll be cut into quarters. That’s the sentence.” 

“If he’s found Guilty, you mean to say?” Jerry added, by 
way of proviso. 

“Oh! they’ll find him guilty,” said the other. “Don’t you 
be afraid of that.” 

Mr. Cruncher’s attention was here diverted to the door¬ 
keeper, whom he saw making his way to Mr. Lorry, with the 
note in his hand. Mr. Lorry sat at a table, among the gentle¬ 
men in wigs: not far from a wigged gentleman, the prisoner’s 
counsel, who had a great bundle of papers before him, and 
nearly opposite another wigged gentleman with his hands in 
his pockets, whose whole attention, when Mr. Cruncher looked 
at him then or afterwards, seemed to be concentrated on the 
ceiling of the court. After some gruff coughing and rubbing 
of his chin and signing with his hand, Jerry attracted the 
notice of Mr. Lorry, who had stood up to look for him, and 
who quietly nodded and sat down again. 

“What’s he got to do with the case?” asked the man he had 
spoken with. 

“Blest if I know,” said Jerry. 

“What have you got to do with it, then, if a person may 
inquire?” 

“Blest if I know that either,” said Jerry. 

The entrance of the Judge, and a consequent great stir and 
settling down in the court, stopped the dialogue. Presently, 




120 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 




the dock became the central point of interest. Two gaolers, 
who had been standing there, went out, and the prisoner was 
brought in, and put to the bar. 1 

Everybody present, except the one wigged gentleman who 
looked at the ceiling, stared at him. All the human breath 
in the place, rolled at him, like a sea, or a wind, or a fire. Ea-i 
ger faces strained round pillars and corners, to get a sight of 
him; spectators in back rows stood up, not to miss a hair of 
him; people on the floor of the court, laid their hands on the 
shoulders of the people before them, to help themselves, at 
anybody’s cost, to a view of him—stood a-tiptoe, got upon 
ledges, stood upon next to nothing, to see every inch of him. 
Conspicuous among these latter, like an animated bit of the 
spiked wall of Newgate, Jerry stood: aiming at the prisoner 
the beery breath of a whet he had taken as he came along, and 
discharging it to mingle with the waves of other beer, and gin, 
and tea, and coffee, and what not, that flowed at him, and al-l 
ready broke upon the great windows behind him in an impure 
mist and rain. 

The object of all this staring and blaring, was a young man 
of about five-and-twenty, well-grown and well-looking, with 
a sunburnt cheek and a dark eye. His condition was that of a 
young gentleman. He was plainly dressed in black, or very 
dark grey, and his hair, which was long and dark, was gath¬ 
ered in a ribbon at the back of his neck; more to be out of his; 
way than for ornament. As an emotion of the mind will ex¬ 
press itself through any covering of the body, so the paleness 
which his situation engendered came through the brown upon 
his cheek, showing the soul to be stronger than the sun. He 
was otherwise quite self-possessed, bowed to the Judge, and 
stood quiet. 

1 On the method of procedure in trials for treason see Traill, Social Eng¬ 
land, Vol. V, p. 36. 









A SIGHT 


12 , 


The sort of interest with which this man was stared and 
breathed at, was not a sort that elevated humanity. Had he 
stood in peril of a less horrible sentence—had there been a 
chance of any one of its savage details being spared—by just 
so much would he have lost in his fascination. The form that 
was to be doomed to be so shamefully mangled, was the sight; 
the immortal creature that was to be so butchered and torn 
asunder, yielded the sensation. Whatever gloss the various 
spectators put upon the interest, according to their several 
arts and powers of self-deceit, the interest was, at the root ot 
it, Ogreish. 

Silence in the court! Charles Darnay had yesterday plead¬ 
ed Not Guilty to an indictment denouncing him (with infinite 
jingle and jangle) for that he was a false traitor to our serene, 
illustrious, excellent, and so forth, prince, our Lord the King, 
by reason of his having, on divers occasions, and by divers 
means and ways, assisted Lewis, the French King, in his w r ars 
against our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth; that 
was to say, by coming and going, between the dominions of 
our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth, and those 
of the said French Lewis, and wickedly, falsely, traitorously, 
and otherwise evil-adverbiously, revealing to the said French 
Lew r is wdiat forces our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so 
forth, had in preparation to send to Canada and North Amer¬ 
ica. This much, Jerry, with his head becoming more and 
more spiky as the law terms bristled it, made out with huge 
satisfaction, and so arrived circuitously at the understanding 
that the aforesaid, and over and over again aforesaid, Charles 
Darnay, stood there before him upon his trial; that the jury 
were swearing in; and that Mr. Attorney-General was making 
ready to speak. 

The accused, who was (and who knew he was) being men¬ 
tally hanged, beheaded, and quartered, by everybody there, 


122 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


neither flinched from the situation, nor assumed any theatri¬ 
cal air in it. He was quiet and attentive; watched the opening, 
proceedings with a grave interest; and stood with his hands 
resting on the slab of wood before him, so composedly, that 
they had not displaced a leaf of the herbs with which it was 
strewn. The court was ah bestrewn with herbs and sprinkled 
with vinegar, as a precaution against gaol air and gaol 
fever. 

Over the prisoner’s head there was a mirror, to throw the 
light down upon him. Crowds of the wicked and the wretch¬ 
ed had been reflected in it, and had passed from its surface and 
this earth’s together. Haunted in a most ghastly manner 
that abominable place would have been, if the glass could ever 
have rendered back its reflections, as the ocean is one day to 
give up its dead. Some .passing thought of the infamy and 
disgrace for which it had been reserved may have struck, the 
prisoner’s mind. Be that as it may, a change in his position 
making him conscious of a bar of light across his face, he 
looked up; and when he saw the glass his face flushed, and his 
right hand pushed the herbs away. 

It happened, that the action turned his face to that side of 
the court which was on his left. About on a level with his 
eyes, there sat, in that corner of the Judge’s bench, two per¬ 
sons upon whom his look immediately rested; so immediately, 
and so much to the changing of his aspect, that all the eyes 
that were turned upon him, turned to them. 

The spectators saw in the two-figures, a young lady of little 
more than twenty, and a gentleman who was evidently her 
father; a man of a very remarkable appearance in respect of 
the absolute whiteness of his hair, and a certain indescribable 
intensity of face: not of an active kind, but pondering and self- 
communing. When this expression was upon him, he looked 
as if he were old; but when it was stirred and broken up—as 


A SIGHT 


123 


it was now, in a moment, on his speaking to his daughter—he 
became a handsome man, not past the prime of life. 

His daughter had one of her hands drawn through his arm, 
as she sat by him, and the other pressed upon it. She had 
drawn close to him, in her dread of the scene, and in her pity 
for the prisoner. Her forehead had been strikingly expressive 
of an engrossing terror and compassion that saw nothing but 
the peril of the accused. This had been so very noticeable, so 
very powerfully and naturally shown, that starers who had 
had no pity for him were touched by her; and the whisper 
went about, “Who are they?” 

Jerry, the messenger, who had made his own observations, 
in his own manner, and who had been sucking the rust off his 
fingers in his absorption, stretched his neck to hear who they 
were. The crowd about him had pressed and passed the in¬ 
quiry on to the nearest attendant, and from him it had been 
more slowly pressed and passed back; at last it got to Jerry: 

“Witnesses.” 

“For which side?” 

“Against.” 

“Against what side?” 

* “The prisoner’s.” 

The Judge, whose eyes had gone in the general direction* 
recalled them, leaned back in his seat, and looked steadily at 
the man whose life was in his hand, as Mr. Attorney-General 
rose to spin the rope, grind the axe, and hammer the nails 
into the scaffold. 


\ 


CHAPTER III. 

A DISAPPOINTMENT 

Mr. Attorney-General had to inform the jury, that the 
prisoner before them, though young in years, was old in the 
treasonable practices which claimed the forfeit of his life. 
Tnat this correspondence with the public enemy was not a 
correspondence of to-day, or of yesterday, or even of last year, 
or of the year before. That it was certain the prisoner had, 
for longer than that, been in the habit of passing and repass¬ 
ing between France and England, on secret business of which 
he could give no honest account. That, if it were in the 
nature of traitorous ways to thrive (which happily it never 
was), the real wickedness and guilt of his business might have 
remained undiscovered. That Providence, however, had put 
it into the heart of a person who was beyond fear and beyond 
reproach, to ferret out the nature of the prisoner’s schemes, 
and, struck with horror, to disclose them to his Majesty’s 
Chief Secretary of State and most honourable Privy Council. 
That this patriot would be produced before them. That his 
position and attitude were, on the whole, sublime. That he 
had been the prisoner’s friend, but, at once in Un auspicious 
ana an evil hour detecting his infamy, had resolved to im¬ 
molate the traitor he’could no longer cherish in his bosom, on 
the sacred altar of his country. That, if statues were decreed 
in Britain, as in ancient Greece and Rome, to public bene¬ 
factors, this shining citizen would assuredly have had one. 
That, as they were not so decreed, he probably would not 
have one. That Virtue, as had been observed by the poets 
(in many passages which he well knew the jury would have, 


A DISAPPOINTMENT 


125 


word for word, at the tips of their tongues; whereat the jury’s 
countenances displayed a guilty consciousness that they knew 
nothing about the passages), was in a manner contagious; 
more especially the bright virtue known as patriotism, or love 
of country. That the lofty example of this immaculate and 
unimpeachable witness for the Crown, to refer to whom how¬ 
ever unworthily was an honour, had communicated itself to 
the prisoner’s servant, and had engendered in him a holy de¬ 
termination to examine his master’s table-drawers and pock¬ 
ets, and secrete his papers. That he (Mr. Attorney Gener¬ 
al) was prepared to hear some disparagement attempted of 
this admirable servant; but that, in a general way, he pre¬ 
ferred him to his (Mr. Attorney-General’s) brothers and sis¬ 
ters, and honoured him more than his (Mr. Attorney-Gener¬ 
al’s) father and mother. That he called with confidence on 
the jury to come and do likewise. That the evidence of 
these two witnesses, coupled with the documents of their dis¬ 
covering that would be produced, would show the prisoner 
to have been furnished with lists of his Majesty’s forces, and 
of their dispositon and preparation, both by sea and land, 
and would leave no doubt that he had habitually conveyed 
such information to a hostile power. That these lists could 
not be proved to be in the prisoner’s handwriting; but that 
it was all the same; that, indeed, it was rather the better for 
the prosecution, as showing the prisoner to be artful in his pre¬ 
cautions. That the proof would go back five years, and 
would show the prisoner already engaged in these pernicious 
missions, within a few weeks before the date of the very first 
action fought between the British troops and the Americans. 
That, for these reasons, the jury, being a loyal jury (as he 
knew they were), and being a responsible jury (as they knew 
they were), must positively find the prisoner Guilty, and 
make an end of him, whether they liked it or not. That 



126 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


they never could lay their heads upon their pillows; that 
they never could tolerate the idea of their wives laying their 
heads upon their pillows; that they never could endure the 
notion of their children laying their heads upon their pillows: 
in short, that there never more could be, for them or theirs*.. j 
any laying of heads upon pillows at all, unless the prisoner’s 
head was taken off. That head Mr. Attorney-General con¬ 
cluded by demanding of them, in the name of everything he 
could think of with a round turn in it, and on the faith of his 
solemn asseveration that he already considered the prisoner 
as good as dead and gone. 

When the Attorney-General ceased, a buzz arose in the 
court as if a cloud of great blue-flies were swarming about the 
prisoner, in anticipation of what he was soon to become. 
When toned down again, the unimpeachable patriot appeared 
in the witness-box. 

Mr. Solicitor-General then, following his leader’s lead, ex¬ 
amined the patriot, John Barsad, gentleman, by name. The 
story of his pure soul was exactly what Mr. Attorney-General 
had described it to be—perhaps, if it had a fault, a little too 
exactly. Having released his noble bosom of its burden, he 
would have modestly withdrawn himself, but that the wigged 
gentleman with the papers before him, sitting not far from 
Mr. Lorry, begged to ask him a few questions. The wigged 
gentleman sitting opposite, still looking at the ceiling of the 
court. 

Had he ever been a spy himself? No, he scorned the base 
insinuation. What did he live upon? His property. Where 
was his property? He didn’t precisely remember where it 
was. What was it? No business of anybody’s. Had he in¬ 
herited it? Yes, he had. From whom? Distant relation. 
Very distant? Rather. Ever been in prison? Certainly 
not. Ne'Ver in a debtor’s prison? Didn’t see what that had 



A DISAPPOINTMENT 


127 


to do with it. Never in a debtor’s prison?—Come, once 
again. Never? Yes. How many times? Two or three times. 
Not five or six? Perhaps. Of what profession? Gentle¬ 
man. Ever been kicked? Might have been. Frequently? 
No. Ever kicked down-stairs? Decidedly not; once re¬ 
ceived a kick on the top of a staircase, and fell down-stairs of 
his own accord. Kicked on that occasion for cheating at 
dice? Something to that effect was said by the intoxicated 
liar who committed the assault, but it was not true. Swear 
it was not true? Positively. Ever live by cheating at play? 
Never. Ever live by play? Not more than other gentlemen 
do. Ever borrow money of the prisoner? Yes. Ever pay 
him? No. Was not this intimacy with the prisoner, in real¬ 
ty a very slight one, forced upon the prisoner in coaches, 
inns, and packets? No. Sure he saw the prisoner with these 
lists? Certain. Knew no more about the lists? No. Had 
not procured them himself, for instance? No. Expect to 
get anything by this evidence? No. Not in regular govern¬ 
ment pay and employment, to lay traps? Oh dear no. Or 
to do anything? Oh dear no. Swear that? Over and over 
again. No motives but motives of sheer patriotism? None 
whatever. 

The virtuous servant, Roger Cly, swore his way through 
the case at a great rate. He had taken service with the 
prisoner, in good faith and simplicity, four years ago. He 
M& asked the prisoner, aboard the Calais packet, if he wanted 
a handy fellow, and the prisoner had engaged him. He had 
not asked the prisoner to take the handy fellow as an act of 
enarity—never thought of such a thing. He began to have 
suspicions of the prisoner, and to keep an eye upon him, soon 
afterwards. In arranging his clothes, while travelling, he 
had seen similar lists to these in the prisoner’s pockets, over 
and over again. He had taken these lists from the drawer of 


128 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


the prisoner’s desk. He had not put them there first. He 
had seen the prisoner show these identical lists to French 
gentlemen of Calais, and similar lists to French gentlemen, 
both at Calais and Boulogne. He loved his country, and 
couldn’t bear it, and had given information. He had never 
been suspected of stealing a silver tea-pot; he had been ma¬ 
ligned respecting a mustard-pot, but it turned out to be only 
a plated one. He had known the last witness seven or eight 
years; that was merely a coincidence. He didn’t call it a 
particularly curious coincidence; most coincidences were cu¬ 
rious. Neither did he call it a curious coincidence that true 
patriotism was his only motive too. He was a true Briton, 
and hoped there were many like him. 

The blue-flies buzzed again, and Mr. Attorney-General 
called Mr. Jarvis Lorry. 

“Mr. Jarvis Lorry, are you a clerk in Tellson’s bank?” 

“Iam.” 

“On a certain Friday night in November one thousand 
seven hundred and seventy-five, did business occasion you 
to travel between London and Dover by the mail?”, 

“It did.” 

“Were there any other passengers in the mail?” 

“Two.” 

“Did they alight on the road in the course of the 
night?” 

“They did.” 

“Mr. Lorry, look upon the prisoner. Was he one of those 
two passengers?” 

“I cannot undertake to say that he was.” 

“Does he resemble either of these two passengers?” 

“Both were so wrapped up, and the night was so dark, and 
we were all so reserved, that I cannot undertake to say even 
that.” 



A DISAPPOINTMENT 


129 


“Mr. Lorry, look again upon the prisoner. Supposing him 
wrapped up as those two passengers were, is there anything 
in his bulk and stature to render it unlikely that he was one of 
them?” 

“No” 

ou will not swear, Mr. Lorry, that he was not one of 
them?” 

“No.” 

“So at least you say he may have been one of them?” 

“Yes. Except that I remember them both to have been— 
like myself—timorous of highwaymen, and the prisoner has 
not a timorous air.” 

“Did you ever see a counterfeit of timidity, Mr. Lorry?” 

“I certainly have seen that.” 

'Mr. Lorry/ look once more upon the prisoner. Have you 
seen him, to your certain knowledge, before?” 

“I have.”' • 

; “When?” 

“I was returning from France a few days afterwards, and, 
at Calais, the prisoner came on board the packet-ship in which 
I returned, and made the voyage with me.” 

“At what hour did he come on board?” 

“At a little after midnight.” 

“In the dead of the night. Was he the only passenger who 
came on board at that untimely hour?” 

“He happened to be the only one.” 

. “Never mind about ‘happening/ Mr. Lorry. He was the 
only passenger who came on board in the dead of the night?” 

“He was.” 

“Were you travelling alone, Mr. Lorry, or with any com- 
pan ion?” 

“With two companions. A gentleman and lady. They 
are here.” 


L30 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“They are here. Had you any conversation with the 
prisoner?” 

“Hardly any. The weather was stormy, and the passage 
long and rough, and I lay on a sofa, almost from shore to 
shore.” 

“Miss Manette!” 

The young kdy, to whom all eyes had been turned before, 
and were now turned again, stood up where she had sat. Her 
father rose with her, and kept her hand drawn through his arm. 

“Miss Manette, look upon the prisoner.” 

To be confronted with such pity, and such earnest youth 
and beauty, was far more trying to the accused than to be 
confronted with all the crowd. Standing, as it were, apart 
with her on the edge of his grave, not all the staring curiosity 
that looked on, could, for the moment, nerve him to remain 
quite still. His hurried right hand parcelled out the herbs 
before him in imaginary beds of flowers in a garden: and his 
efforts to control and steady his breathing shook the lips from 
which the colour rushed to his heart. The buzz of the great 
flies was loud again. 

' Miss Manette, have you seen the prisoner before?” 

! Yes, sir.” 

“Where?” 

“On board of the packet-ship just now referred to, sir, and^ 
on the same occasion.” 

“You are the young lady just now referred to?” 

“O! most unhappily, I am!” 

The plaintive tone of her compassion merged into the less 
musical voice of the Judge, as he said something fiercely: 
“Answer the questions put to you, and make no remark upon 
them.” 

“MissManette, had you any conversation with the prisoner 
on that passage across the Channel?” 


A DISAPPOINTMENT 


131 


“Yes, sir.” 

“Recall it.” 

In the midst of a profound stillness, she faintly began: 

“When the gentleman came on board—” 

“Do you mean the prisoner?” inquired the Judge, knitting 
his brows. 

“Yes, my Lord.” 

“Then say the prisoner.” 

“When the prisoner came on board, he noticed that my 
father,” turning her eyes lovingly to him as he stood beside 
her, “was much fatigued and in a very weak state of health. 
My father was so reduced that I was afraid to take him out 
of the air, and I had made a bed for him on the deck near the 
cabin steps, and I sat on the deck at his side to take care of 
him. There were no other passengers that night, but we four. 
The prisoner was so good as to beg permission to advise me 
how I could shelter my father from the wind and weather, 
better than I had done. I had not known how to do it well, 
not understanding how the wind would set when we were out 
of the harbour. He did it for me. He expressed great gen¬ 
tleness and kindness for my father’s state, and I am sure he 
felt it. That was the manner of our beginning to speak to¬ 
gether.” 

“Let me interrupt you for a moment. Had he come on 
board alone?” 

“No.” 

“How many were with him?” 

“Two French gentlemen.” 

“Had they conferred together?” 

“They had conferred together until the last moment, when 
it was necessary for the French gentlemen to be landed in 
their boat.” 

“Had any papers been handed about among them, similar 
to these lists?” 


132 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“Some papers had been handed about among them, but 1 
don’t know what papers.” 

“Like these in shape and size?” 

“Possibly, but indeed I don’t know, although they stood 
whispering very near to me: because they stood at the top ot 
the cabin steps to have the light of the lamp that was hanging 
there; it was a dull lamp, and they spoke very low, and 1 did 
not hear what they said, and saw only that they looked at 
papers.” 

“Now, to the prisoner’s conversation, Miss Manette. 

“The prisoner was as open in his confidence with me— 
which arose out of my helpless situation—as he was kind, and 
good, and useful to my father. I hope,” bursting into tears, 
“1 may not repay him by doing him harm to-day.” 

Buzzing from the blue-flies. 

“Miss Manette, if the prisoner does not perfectly under¬ 
stand that you give the evidence which it is your duty to give 
-—which you must give—and which you cannot escape from 
giving—with great unwillingness, he is the only person pres¬ 
ent in that condition. Please to go on.” 

“He told me that he was travelling on business of a del¬ 
icate and difficult nature, which might get people into trouble 
and that he was therefore travelling under an assumed name. 
He said that this business had, within a few days, taken him 
to France, and might, at intervals, take him backwards and 
forwards between France and England for a long time to 
come.” 

“Did he say anything about America, Miss Manette? Be 
particular.” 

“He tried to explain to me how that quarrel had arisen, 
and he said that, so far as he could judge, it was a wrong and 
foolish one on England’s part. He added, in a jesting wa’ , 
that perhaps George Washington might gain almost as great 


A DISAPPOINTMENT 


133 


a name in history as George the Third. But there was no 
harm in his way of saying this: it was said laughingly and 
to beguile the time.” 

Any strongly marked expression of face on the part of a 
chief actor in a scene of great interest to whom many eyes 
are directed, will be unconsciously imitated by the specta¬ 
tors. Her forehead was painfully anxious and intent as she 
gave this evidence, and, in the pauses when she stopped fo* 
the Judge to write it down, watched its effect upon the counsel 
for and against. Among the lookers-on there was the same 
expression in all quarters of the court; insomuch that a great 
majority of the foreheads there might have been mirrors re¬ 
flecting the witness, when the Judge looked up from his notes 
to glare at that tremendous heresy about George Washington. 

Mr. Attorney-General now signified to my Lord, that he 
deemed it necessary, as a matter of precaution and form, to 
call the young lady’s father, Doctor Manette. Who was called 
accordingly. 

“DoctorManette, look upon the prisoner. Have you ever 
seen him before?” 

“Once. When he called at my lodgings in London. Some 
three years, or three years and a half ago.” 

“Can you identify him as your fellow-passenger on board 
the packet, or speak to his conversation with your daughter?” 

“Sir, I can do neither.” 

“Is there any particular and special reason for your being 
unable to do either?” 

He answered, in a low voice, “There is.” 

“Has it been your misfortune to undergo a long imprison' 
ment, without trial, or even accusation, in your native coun 
try. Doctor Manette?” 

He answered in a tone that went to every heart. “A long 
imprisonment.” 


(34 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“Were you newly released on the occasion in question?” 

“They tell me so.” 

“Have you no remembrance of the occasion?” 

“None. My mind is a blank, from some time—I cannot 
even say what time—when I employed myself, in my cap¬ 
tivity, in making shoes, to the time when I found myself 
living in London with my dear daughter here. She had be¬ 
come familiar to me, when a gracious God restored my facul¬ 
ties; but, I am quite unable even to say how she had become 
familiar. I have no remembrance of the process.” 

Mr. Attorney-General sat down, and the father and daugh¬ 
ter sat down together. 

A singular circumstance then arose in the case. The ob¬ 
ject in hand being to show that the prisoner went down, with 
some fellow-plotter untracked, in the Dover mail on that 
Friday night in November five years ago, and got out of 
the mail in the night, as a blind, at a place where he did not 
remain, but from which he travelled back some dozen miles 
or more, to a garrison and dockyard, and there collected 
information; a witness was called to identify him as having 
been at the precise time required, in the coffee-room of an 
hotel in that garrison-and-dockyard town, waiting for an¬ 
other person. The prisoner’s counsel was cross-examining 
this witness with no result, except that he had never seen 
the prisoner on any other occasion, when the wigged gentle¬ 
man who had all this time been looking at the ceiling of the 
court, wrote a word or two on a little piece of paper, screwed 
it up and tossed it to him. Opening this piece of paper in 
the next pause, the counsel looked with great attention and 
curiosity at the prisoner. 

“You say again you are quite sure that it was the prisoner?” 

The witness was quite sure. 

“Did you ever see anybody very like the prisoner?” 



A DISAPPOINTMENT 


135 


Not so like (the witness said) as that he could be mistaken. 

“Look well upon that gentleman, my learned friend there,” 
pointing to him who had tossed the paper over, “and then 
look well upon the prisoner. How say you? Are they very 
like each other?” 

Allowing for my learned friend’s appearance being careless 
and slovenly if not debauched, they were sufficiently like each 
other to surprise, not only the witness, but everybody present, 
when they were thus brought into comparison. My Lord 
being prayed to bid my learned friend lay aside his wig, and 
giving no very gracious consent, the likeness became much 
more remarkable. Mv Lord inquired of Mr. Stryver (the 
prisoner’s counsel), whether they were next to try Mr. Carton 
(name of my learned friend) for treason? But, Mr. Stryver 
replied to my Lord, no; but he would ask the witness to tell 
him whether what happened once, might happen twice; 
whether he would have been so confident if he had seen this 
illustration of his rashness sooner, whether he would be so 
confident, having seen it; and more. The upshot of which 
was to smash this witness like a crockery vessel, and shiver 
his part of the case to useless lumber. 

Mr. Cruncher had by this time taken quite a lunch of rust 
off his fingers in his following of the evidence. He had now 
to attend while Mr. Stryver fitted the prisoner’s case on the 
jury, like a compact suit of clothes; showing them how the 
patriot, Barsad, was a hired spy and traitor, an unblushing 
trafficker in blood, and one of the greatest scoundrels upon 
earth since accursed Judas—which he certainly did look 
rather like. How the virtuous servant, Cly, was his friend 
and partner, and was worthy to be; how the watchful eyes 
of those forgers and false swearers had rested on the prisoner 
as a victim, because some family affairs in France, he being 
of French extraction, did require his making those passages 


136 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


across the Channel—though what those affairs were, a con* 
yideration for others who were near and dear to him forbade 
him, even for his life, to disclose. How the evidence that 
had been warped and wrested from the young lady, whose 
anguish in giving it they had witnessed, came to nothing, 
involving the mere little innocent gallantries and polite¬ 
nesses likely to pass between any young gentleman and 
young lady so thrown together;—with the exception of 
that reference to George Washington, which was altogether 
too extravagant and impossible to be regarded in any other 
light than as a monstrous joke. How it would be a weak¬ 
ness in the government to break down in this attempt to 
practise for popularity on the lowest national antipathies 
<\nd fears, and therefore Mr. Attorney-General had made 
the most of it; how, nevertheless, it rested upon nothing, 
save that vile and infamous character of evidence too often 
disfiguring such cases, and of which the State Trials of this 
country were full. But there my Lord interposed (with as 
grave a face as if it had not been true), saying that he could 
not sit upon that Bench and suffer those allusions. 

Mr. Stryver then called his few witnesses, andMr. Cruncher 
had next to attend while Mr. Attorney-General turned the 
whole suit of clothes Mr. Stryver had fitted on the jury, in¬ 
side out; showing how Barsad and Cly were even a hundred 
times better than he had thought them, and the prisoner 
z hundred times worse. Lastly, came my Lord himself, 
turning the suit of clothes, now inside out, now outside in, 
but on the whole decidedly trimming and shaping them into 
grave-clothes for the prisoner. 

And now, the jury turned to consider, and the great flies 
sw T armed again. 

Mr. Carton, who had so long sat looking at the ceiling of 
the court, changed neither his place nor his attitude, even 


A DISAPPOINTMENT 


137 


in this excitement. While his learned friend. Mr. Stryver. 
massing his papers before him, whispered with those who sat 
near, and from time to time glanced anxiously at the jury; 
while all the spectators moved more or less, and grouped 
themselves anew; while even my Lord himself arose from 
his seat, and slowly paced up and down his platform, not 
unattended by a suspicion in the minds of the audience that 
his state was feverish; this one man sat leaning back, with 
his torn gown half off him, his untidy wig put on just as it 
had happened to light on his head after its removal, his 
hands in his pockets, and his eyes on the ceiling as they had 
been all day. Something especially reckless in his demeanour 
not only gave him a disreputable look, but so diminished 
the strong resemblance he undoubtedly bore to the prisonei 
(which his momentary earnestness, when they were com 
pared together, had strengthened), that many of the lookers 
on, taking not? of him now, said to one another they would 
hardly have thought the two were so alike. Mr. Cruncher 
made the observation to his next neighbour, and added,“I’d 
hold half a guinea that he don’t get no law-work to do. Don’t 
look like the sort of one to get any, do he?” 

Yet, this Mr. Carton took in more of the details of the scene 
than he appeared to take in; for now, when Miss Manette’s 
head dropped upon her fathers breast, he was the first to 
see it, and to say audibly: “Officer! look to that young lady. 
Help the gentleman to take her out. Don’t you see she 
will fall!” 

There was much commiseration for her as she was re¬ 
moved, and much sympathy with her father. It had eviden t* 
ly been a great distress to him, to have the days of his im¬ 
prisonment recalled. He had shown strong internal agita¬ 
tion when he was questioned, and that pondering or brood¬ 
ing look which made him old, had been upon him, like a 


138 


A TALE OF' TWO CITIES 


heavy cloud, ever since. As he passed out, the jury, " ho 
had turned back and paused a moment, spoke, through their 

They were not agreed and wished to retire. My Loid 
(perhaps with George Washington on his mind) showed 
some surprise that they were not agreed, but signified his 
pleasure that they should retire under watch and ward, and 
retired himself. The trial had lasted all day, and the lamps 
in the court were now being lighted. It began to be rumour¬ 
ed that the jury would be out a long while. The spectators 
dropped off to get refreshment, and the prisoner withdrew 
to the back of the dock and sat down. 

Mr. Lorry, who had gone out when the young lady and 
her father went out, now reappeared, and beckoned to Jerry, 
who in the slackened interest, could easily get near him. 

“Jerry if you wish to take something to eat, you can. But 
keep in the way. You will be sure to hear when the jury 
come in. Don’t be a moment behind them, for I want you 
to take the verdict back to the bank. You are the quick¬ 
est messenger I know, and will get to Temple Bar long be- 

Jerry had just enough forehead to knuckle, and he knuck¬ 
led it in acknowledgment of this communication and a shil¬ 
ling. Mr. Carton came up at the moment, and touched Mr. 

Lorry on the arm. 

“How is the young lady?” 

“She is greatly distressed; but her father is comforting 
her, and she feels the better for being out of court.” 

“I’ll tell the prisoner so. It won’t do for a respectable 
bank gentleman like you, to be seen speaking to him, public¬ 
ly, you know.” 

Mr. Lorry reddened as if he were conscious of having de¬ 
bated the point in his mind, and Mr. Carton made his waj 


A DISAPPOINTMENT 


139 


to the outside of the bar. The way out of court lay in that 
direction, and Jerry followed him, all eyes, ears, and spikes. 
“Mr. Darnay!” 

The prisoner came forward directly. 

“\ou will naturally be anxious to hear of the witness. 
Miss Manette. She will do very well. You have seen the 
worst of her agitation.” 

“I am deeply sorry to have been the cause of it. Could 
you tell her so for me, with my fervent acknowledgments?” 
“Yes, I could. I will if you ask it.” 

Mr. Carton s manner was so careless as to be almost in¬ 
solent. He stood, half turned from the prisoner, lounging 
with his elbow against the bar. 

“I do ask it. Accept my cordial thanks.” 

What, said Carton, still only half turned towards him, 

| “do you expect, Mr. Darnay?” 

“The worst / 7 

“It’s the wisest thing to expect, and the likeliest. But I 
think their withdrawing is in your favour/’ 

Loitering on the way out of court not being allowed, Jerry 
heard no more: but left them—so like each other in feature, 
j so unlike each other in manner—standing side by side, both 
j reflected in the glass above them. 

An hour and a half limped heavily away in the thief-and- 
rascal crowded passages below, even though assisted off with 
mutton pies and ale. The hoarse messenger, uncomfortably 
seated on a form after taking that refection, had dropped 
into a doze, when a loud murmur and a rapid tide of people 
setting up the stairs that led to the court, carried him along 
with them. 

“Jerry! Jerry!” Mr. Lorry was already calling at the door 
when he got there. 

“Here, sir! It’s a fight to get back again. Here I am, 
sir!” 





140 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Mr. Lorry handed him a paper through the throng. “Quick! 
Have you got it?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

Hastily written on the paper was the word “Acquitted.^ 

“If you had sent the message, ‘Recalled to Life,’ again,” 
muttered Jerry as he turned, “I should have known what 
you meant this time.” 

He had no opportunity of saying, or so much as thinking, 
anything else, until he was clear of the Old Bailey; for the 
crowd came pouring out with a vehemence that nearly took 
him off his legs, and a loud buzz swept into the street as if 
the baffled blue-flies were dispersing in search of other carrion. 


CHAPTER IV. 


CONGRATULATORY 

From the dimly-lighted passages of the court, the last sedi¬ 
ment of the human stew that had been boiling there all day, 
was straining off, when Doctor Manette, Lucie Manette, his 
daughter, Mr. Lorry, the solicitor for the defence, and its 
j counsel, Mr. Stryver, stood gathered round Mr. Charles 
Darnay—just released—congratulating him on his escape 
from death. 

It would have been difficult by a far brighter light, to 
recognise in Doctor Manette, intellectual of face and up¬ 
right of bearing, the shoemaker of the garret in Paris. Yet, 
no one could have looked at him twice, without looking again: 
even though the opportunity of observation had not extend¬ 
ed to the mournful cadence of his low grave voice, and to the 
abstraction that overclouded him fitfully, without any ap¬ 
parent reason. While one external cause, and that a refer¬ 
ence to his long lingering agony, would always—as on the 
trial—evoke this condition from the depths of his soul, it 
was also in its nature to arise of itself, and to draw a gloom 
ever hfrn, as incomprehensible to those unacquainted with 
his story as if they had seen the shadow of the actual Bastile 
thrown upon him by a summer sun, when the substance 
was three hundred miles away. 

Only his daughter had the power of charming this black 
brooding from his mind. She was the golden thread that 
united him to a Past beyond his misery, and to a Present 
beyond his misery: and the sound of her voice, the light of 
her face, the touch of her hand, had a strong beneficial 

141 



142 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


influence with him almost always. Not absolutely always, 
for she could recall some occasions on which her power had 
failed; but they were few and slight, and she believed them 
over. 

Mr. Darnay had kissed her hand fervently and gratefully, 
and had turned to Mr. Stryver, whom he warmly thanked. 

Mr. Stryver, a man of little^more than thirty, but looking 
twenty years older than he was, stout, loud, red, bluff, and 
free from any drawback of delicacy, had a pushing way of 
shouldering himself (morally and physically) into companies 
and conversations, that argued well for his shouldering his 
way up in life. 

He still had his wig and gown on, and he said, squaring 
himself at his late client to that degree that he squeezed the 
innocent Mr Lorry clean out of the group: “I am glad to 
have brought you off with honour, Mr. Darnay. It was an 
infamous prosecution, grossly infamous; but not the less 
likely to succeed on that account.” 

“You have laid me under an obligation to you for life—in 
two senses,” said his late client, taking his hand. 

“I have done my best for you, Mr. Darnay; and my best 
is as good as another man’s, I believe.” 

It clearly being incumbent on some one to say, “Much 
better,” Mr. Lorry said it; perhaps net qinte disinterestedly, 
but with the interested object of squeezing himself back 
again. 

“You think so?” said Mr. Stryver. “Well! you have been 
present all day and you ought to know. Lou are a man of 
business, too.” 

“And as such,” quoth Mr. Lorry, whom the counsel learned 
in the law^ had now shouldered back into the group, just as 
he had previously shouldered him out of it—“as such I will 
appeal to Doctor Manette, to break up this conference and 


CONGRATULATORY 


143 

order us all to our homes. Miss Lucie looks ill,Mi. Darnaj’ 
has had a terrible day, we are worn out.” 

“Speak for yourself, Mr. Lorry,” said Stryver; “I have 
a night’s work to do yet. Speak for yourself.” 

“I speak for myself,” answered Mr Lorry, “and for Mr. 

Darnay, and for Miss Lucie, and-Miss Lucie, do you not 

think I may speak for us all?” He asked her the question 
pointedly, and with a glance at her father. 

His face had become frozen, as it were, in a very curious 
look at Darnay: an intent look, deepening into a frown of 
dislike and distrust, not even unmixed with fear. With 
this strange expression on him his thoughts had wandered 
away. 

“My father,” said Lucie, softly laying her hand on his. 

He slowly shook the shadow off, and turned to her. 

“Shall we go home, my father?” 

With a long breath, he answered “Yes.” 

The friends of the acquitted prisoner had dispersed, under 
the impression—which he himself had originated—that he 
would not be released that night. The lights were nearly 
all extinguished in the passages, the iron gates were being 
closed with a jar and a rattle, and the dismal place was de¬ 
serted until to-morrow morning’s interest of gallows, pillory, 
whipping-post, and branding-iron, should re-people it. Walk¬ 
ing between her father and Mr. Darney, Lucie Manette 
passed into the open air. A hackney-coach was called, and 
the father and daughter departed in it. 

Mr. Stryver had left them in the passages, to shoulder his 
way back to the robing-room. Another person, who had 
not joined the group, or interchanged a word with any one 
of them, but who had been leaning against the wall where 
its shadow was darkest, had silently strolled out after the 
rest, and had looked on until the coach drove away. He now 




144 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


/ 


stepped up to where Mr. Lorry and Mr. Darnay stood upon 
the pavement. 

“So, Mr. Lorry! Men of business may speak to Mr. Dar¬ 
nay now?” 

Nobody had made any acknowledgment of Mr. Carton's 
part in the day’s proceedings; nobody had know T n of it. He 
was unrobed, and was none the better for it in appearance. 

“If you knew what a conflict goes on in the business mind 
when the business mind is divided between good-natured 
impulse and business appearances, you wmuld be amused, Mr. 
Darnay.” 

Mr. Lorry reddened, and said, warmly, “You have men¬ 
tioned that before, sir. We men of business who serve a 
House are not our own masters. We have to think of the 
House more than ourselves.” 

“/ know, / know,” rejoined Mr. Carton, carelessly. “Don’t 
be nettled,Mr. Lorry. You are as good as another, I have 
no doubt: better, I dare say.” 

“And indeed, sir,” pursued Mr. Lorry, not minding him, 
“I really don’t know what you have to with the matter. If 
you’ll excuse me, as very much your elder, for saying so, 1 
really don’t know that it is your business.” 

“‘Business! Bless you, I have no business,” said Mr. 
Carton. * 

“It is a pity you have not, sir.” 

“I think so, too.” 

“If you had,” pursued Mr. Lorry, “perhaps you would at¬ 
tend to it.” 

“Lord love you, no!—I shouldn’t,’’saidMr Carton. 

“Well, sir!” cried Mr. Lorry, thoroughly heated by his 
indifference, “business is a very good thing, and a very re¬ 
spectable thing. And, sir, if business imposes its restraints 
and its silences and impediments, Mr. Darnay as a young 


CONGRATULATORY 


145 

gentleman of generosity knows how to make allowance for 
that circumstance. Mr. Darnay, good night, God bless you, 
sir! I hope you have been this day preserved for a' prosper¬ 
ous and happy life—Chair there!” 

Perhaps a little angry with himself, as well as with the 
barrister, Mr. Lorry bustled into the chair, and was carried 
off to Tellson’s. Carton, who smelt of port wine, and did 
not appear to be quite sober, laughed then, and turned to 
Darnay: * 

“This is a strange chance that throws you and me together. 
This must be a strange night to you, standing alone here 
with your counterpart on these street stones?” 

“I hardly seem yet,” returned Charles Darnay, “to belong 
to this world again.” 

“I don’t wonder at it; it’s not so long since you were pretty 
far advanced on your way to another. You speak faintly.” 
“I begin to think I am faint.” 

“Then why the devil don’t you dine? I dined, myself, 
while those numskulls were deliberating which world you 
should belong to—this, or some other. Let me show you 
the nearest tavern to dine well at.” 

Drawing his arm through his own, he took him down Lud- 
gate-hill to Fleet-street, and so, up a covered way, into a 
tavern. Here, they were shown into a little room, where 
Charles Darnay was soon recruiting his strength with a good 
plain dinner and good wine: while Carton sat opposite to 
him at the same table, with his separate bottle of port before 
him, and his fully half-insolent manner upon him. 

“Do you feel yet that you belong to this terrestrial scheme 
again, Mr. Darnay?” 

‘I am frightfully confused regarding time and place; but 
I am so far mended as to feel that.” 

“It must be an immense satisfaction!” 





146 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES* 


He said it bitterly, and filled up his glass again: which was 

a large one. j 

“As to me, the greatest desire I have, is to forget that I 
belong to it. It has no good in it for me—except wine like 
ttfig— n0 r I for it. So we are not much alike in that particu- j 
lar. Indeed, I begin to think we are not much alike in any j 
particular, you and I.” 

Confused by the emotion of the day, and feeling his being j 
there with this Double of coarse deportment to be like a 
dream, Charles Darnay was at a loss how to answer; finally, 
answered not at all. 

“Now your dinner is done,” Carton presently said, “why 
don’t you call a health, Mr. Darnay; why don t you give 
your toast?” 

“What health? What toast?” 

“Why, it’s on the tip of your tongue. It ought to be, it 
must be, I’ll swear it’s there.” 

“Miss Manette, then!” 

“Miss Manette, then!” 

Looking his companion full in the face while he drank < 
the toast, Carton flung his glass over his shoulder against 
the wall, where it shivered to pieces; then, rang the bell, and 
ordered in another. 

“That’s a fair young lady to hand to a coach in the dark, 
Mr. Darnay!” he said, filling his new goblet. 

A slight frown and a laconic “Yes,” were the answer. 

“That’s a fair young lady to be pitied by and wept for by! 
How does it feel? Is it worth being tried for one’s life, to be 
the object of such sympathy and compassion, Mr. Darnay?” 

Again Darnay answered not a w’ord. 

“She was mightily pleased to have your message, when I 
gave it her. Not that she showed she w r as pleased, but I 
suppose she was.” 





CO N C, R ATUL ATORY 


147 


The allusion served as a timely reminder to Darnay that 
this disagreeable companion, had, of his own free will, as¬ 
sisted him in the strait of the day. He turned the dialogue 
to that point, and thanked him for it. 

I neither want any thanks, nor merit any,” was the care- 
| less rejoinder. It was nothing to do, in the first place; and 
I don’t know why I did it, in the second. Mr. Darnay, let 
me ask you a question.” 

“Willingly, and a small return for your good offices.” 

“Do you think I particularly like you?” 

“Really, Mr. Carton,” returned the other, oddly discon¬ 
certed, “I have not asked myself that question.” * 

“But ask yourself the question now.” 

\ou have acted as if you do; but I don’t think you do.” 
I don t think I do, ’ said Carton. “I begin to have a very 
good opinion of your understanding.” 

“Nevertheless,” pursued Darnay, rising to ring the bell, 
“there is nothing in that, I hope, to prevent my calling the 
reckoning, and our parting without ill-blood on either side.” 

Carton rejoining, “Nothing in life!” Darnay rang. “Do 
you call the whole reckoning?” said Carton. On his answer¬ 
ing in the affirmative^ “Then bring me another pint of this 
same'wine, drawer, and come and wake me at ten.” 

The bill being paid, Charles Darnay rose and wished him 
‘ good-night. Without returning the wish, Carton rose too, 
with something of a threat of defiance in his manner, and 
said, “A last word, Mr. Darnay: you think I am drunk?” 

“I think you have been drinking, Mr. Carton.” 

“Think? You know I have been drinking.” 
ij “Since I must say so, I know it.” 

“Then you shall likewise know why. I am a disappointed 
drudge, sir. I care for no man on earth, and no man on 
earth cares for me.” 




148 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“Much to be regretted. You might have used your talents 
better.” 

“May be so, Mr. Darnay; may be not. Don’t let your 
sober face elate you, however; you don’t know what it may 
come to. Good night!” 

When he was left alone, this strange being took up a candle, j 
went to a glass that hung against the wall, and surveyed 
himself minutely in it. 

“Do you particularly like the man?” he muttered, at his 
own image; “why should you particularly like a man who 
resembles you? There is nothing in you to like; you know 
that. Ah, confound you! What a change you have made 
in yourself! A good reason for taking to a man, that he 
shows you w’hat you have fallen away from, and what you: 
might have been! Change places with him, and would you 
have been looked at by those blue eyes as he was, and com¬ 
miserated by that agitated face as he was? Come on, and 
have it out in plain words! You hate the fellow.” 

He resorted to his pint of wine for consolation, drank it 
all in a few minutes, and fell asleep on his arms, with his hair: 
straggling over the table, and a long winding-sheet in the: 
candle dripping down upon him. 





CHAPTER V. 


THE JACKAL 

Those were drinking days, and most men drank hard. 1 So 
very great is the improvement Time has brought about in 
such habits, that a moderate statement of the quantity of 
wine and punch which one man would swallow in the course 
of a night, without any detriment to his reputation as a per¬ 
fect gentleman, would seem, in these days, a ridiculous ex¬ 
aggeration. The learned profession of the law was certainly 
not behind any other learned profession in its Bacchanalian 
propensities; neither was Mr. Stryver, already fast shoulder¬ 
ing his way to a large and lucrative practice, behind his com¬ 
peers in this particular, any more than in the drier parts of 
the legal race. 

A favourite at the Old Bailey, and eke at the Sessions, Mr. 
Stryver had begun cautiously to hew away the^lower staves 
of the ladder on which he mounted. Sessions and Old Bailey 
had now to summon their favourite, specially, to their long¬ 
ing arms; and shouldering itself towards the visage of the 
Lord Chief Justice in the Court of King’s Bench, the florid 
countenance of Mr. Stryver might be daily seen, bursting 
out of the bed of wigs, like a great sunflower pushing its way 
at the sun from among a rank gardenfull of flaring compan¬ 
ions. 

It had once been noted at the Bar, that while Mr. Stryvei 
was a glib man, and an unscrupulous, and a ready, and a bold, 
he had not that faculty of extracting the essence from a heap 
of statements, which is among the most striking and neces- 

1 See Traill, Social England, Vol. V, p. 136. 



150 


A. TALE OF TWO CITIES 


sary of the advocate’s accomplishments. But a remarkable 
improvement came upon him as to this. The more business 
he got, the greater his power seemed to grow of getting at 
its pith and marrow; a>id however late at night he sat ca¬ 
rousing with Sydney Carton, he always had his points at his 
fingers’ ends in the morning. 

Sydney Carton, idlest and most unpromising of men, was 
Stryver’s great ally. What the two drank together, be¬ 
tween Hilary Term and Michaelmas, 1 might have floated a 
king’s ship. Stryver never had a case in hand anywhere, but 
Carton was there, with his hands in his pockets, staring at 
the ceiling of the court; they went the same Circuit, and even 
there they prolonged their usual orgies late into the night, 
and Carton was rumoured to be seen at broad day, going 
home stealthily and unsteadily to his lodgings, like a dis¬ 
sipated cat. At last, it began to get about, among such as 
were interested in the matter, that although Sydney Carton 
would never be a lion, he was an amazingly good jackal, and 
that he rendered suit and seVvice to Stryver in that humble 
capacity. 

“Ten o’clock, sir,” said the man at the tavern, whom he 
had charged to wake him—“ten o’clock, sir.” 

“What’s the matter?” 

“Ten o’clock, sir. 1 ” 

“What do you mean? Ten o’clock at night?” 

“Yes, sir. Your honor told me to call you.” 

“Oh! 1 remember. Very well, very well.” 

After a few dull efforts to get to sleep again, which the man 
dexterously combated by -stirring the fire continuously for 
five minutes, he got up, tossed his hat on, and walked out. 
He turned into the Temple, and, having revived himself 

1 The English law-terms during which the courts sit are four; Hilary, 
Jan. 11-31; Easter, April 15-May 8; Trinity, May 22-June 12; Michaelmas 
Nov. 2-25. 





THE JACKAL 


151 


by twice pacing the pavements of King’s Bench-walk and 
Paper-buildings, turned into the Stryver chambers. 

The Stryver clerk, who never assisted at these conferences, 
had gone home, and the Stryver principal opened the door. 
He had his slippers on, and a loose bed-gown, and his throat 
was bare for his greater ease. He had that rather wild, 
-strained, seared marking about the eyes, which may be ob¬ 
served in all free livers of his class, from the portrait of Jef¬ 
fries 1 downward, and which can be traced, under various dis¬ 
guises of Art, through the portraits of every Drinking Age. 

“You are a little late, Memory,” said Stryver. 

“About the usual time; it may be a quarter of an hour 
later.” 

They went into a dingy room lined with books and littered 
with papers, where there was a blazing fire. A kettle steamed 
upon the hob, and in the midst of the wreck of papers a table 
shone, with plenty of wine upon it, and brandy, and rum, 
and sugar, and lemons. 

“You have had your bottle, I perceive, Sydney.” 

“Two to-night, I think. I have been dining with the 
day’s client; or seeing him dine—it’s all one!” 

“That was a rare point, Sydney, that you brought to bear 
upon the identification. How did you come by it? When 
did it strike you?” 

“I thought he was rather a handsome fellow, and I thought 
I should have been much the same sort of fellow, if I had had 
any luck.” 

Mr. Stryver laughed till he shook his precocious paunch. 

“You and your luck, Sydney! Get to work, get to work.” 

Sullenly enough, the jackal loosened his dress, went into an 

1 George Jeffries, or Jeffreys, as the name is more properly spelled, was 
the notoriously brutal and profligate chief justice under James II. Read 
Blackmore’s Lorna Doone, Chapters xxv-xxvi. Read also Macaulay’s 
famous analysis of his character, History of England, Chap. iv. 



152 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 

adjoining room, and came back with a large jug of cold water, j 
a basin, and a towel or two. Steeping the towels in the water, 
and partially wringing them out, he folded them on his head 
in a manner hideous to behold, sat down at the table, and 

said, “Now I am ready!” # „ , 

“Not much boiling down to be done to-night, Memory, 
said Mr. Stry ver, gaily, as he looked among his papers. 

“How much?” 

“Only two sets of them.” 

“Give me the worst first.” 

“There they are, Sydney. Fire awayl” 

The lion then composed himself on his back on a sofa on one 
side of the drinking-table, while the jackal sat at his own pa¬ 
per-bestrewn table proper, on the other side of it, with the bot¬ 
tles and glasses ready to his hand. Both resorted to the drink¬ 
ing-table without stint, but each in a different way; the lion 
for the most part reclining with his hands in his waistband, 
looking at the fire, or occasionally flirting with some lighter 
document; the jackal, with knitted brows and intent face, so 
deep in his task that his eyes did not even follow the hand he 
stretched out for his glass—which often groped about, for a 
minute or more, before it found the glass for his lips. Two or 
three times, the matter in hand became so knotty, that the 
jackal found it imperative on him to get up, and steep his 
towels anew. From these pilgrimages to the jug and basin, 
he returned with such eccentricities of damp head-gear as no 
words can describe; which were made the more ludicrous by 
his anxious gravity. 

At length the jackal had got together a compact repast for 
the lion, and proceeded to offer it to him. The lion took it 
with care and caution, made his selections from it, and his 
remarks upon it, and the jackal assisted both. When the 
repast was fully discussed,'the lion put his hands in his waist- 




THE JACKAL 


lfi3 


band again, and lay down to meditate. The jackal then in¬ 
vigorated himself with a bumper for his throttle, and a fresh 
application to his head, and applied himself to the collection 
of a second meal; this was administered to the lion in the same 
manner, and was not disposed of until the clocks struck three 
in the morning. 

“And now we have done, Sydney, fill a bumper of punch,” 
said Mr. Stryver. 

The jackal removed the towels from his head, which had 
been steaming again, shook himself, yawned, shivered, and 
complied. 

“You were very sound, Sydney, in the matter of those 
crown witnesses to-day. Every question told.” 

“I always am sound; am I not?” 

“I don’t gainsay it. What has roughened your temper? 
Put some punch to it and smooth it again.” 

With a deprecatory grunt, the jackal again complied. 

“The old Sydney Carton of old Shrewsbury School,” said 
Stryver, nodding his head over him as he reviewed him in the 
present and the past, “the old seesaw Sydney. Up one minute 
and down the next; now in spirits and now in despondency!” 

“Ah!” returned the other, sighing: “yes! The same Syd¬ 
ney, with the same luck. Even then, I did exercises for other 
boys, and seldom did my own.” 

“And why not?” 

“God knows. It was my way, I suppose.” 

He sat, with his hands in his pockets and his legs stretched 
out before him, looking at the fire. 

“Carton,” said his friend, squaring himself at him with a 
bullying air, as if the fire-grate had been the furnace in which 
sustained endeavour was forged, and the one delicate thing 
to be done for the old Sydney Carton, of old Shrewsbury 
school was to shoulder him into it, “your way is, and always 



154 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


was, a lame way. You summon no energy and purpose. 
Look at me.” 

“Oh, botheration!” returned Sydney, with a lighter and 
more good-humoured laugh, “don’t you be moral!” 

“How have I done what I have done?” said Stryver; “how 
do I do what I do?” 

“Partly through paying me to help you, I suppose. But 
it's not worth your while to apostrophise me, or the air, about 
it; what you want to do, you do. You were always in the 
front rank, and I was always behind.” 

“I had to get into the front rank; I was not born there, was 
I?” 

“I was not present at the ceremony; but my opinion is you 
were,” said Carton. At this, he laughed again, and they both 
iaughed. 

“Before Shrewsbury, and at Shrewsbury, and ever since 
Shrewsbury,” pursued Carton, “you have fallen into your 
rank, and I have fallen into mine. Even when we were fel¬ 
low-students in the Student-Quarter of Paris, picking up 
French, and French law, and other French crumbs that we 
didn’t get much good of, you were always somewhere, and I 
was always—nowhere.” 

“And whose fault was that?” 

“Upon my soul, I am not sure that it was not yours. You 
were always driving and riving and shouldering and pressing, 
to that restless degree that I had no chance for my life but in 
rest and repose. It’s a gloomy thing, however, to talk about 
one’s own past, with the day breaking. Turn me in some 
other direction before I go.” 

“Well then! Pledge me to the pretty witness,” said Stry¬ 
ver, holding up his glass. “Are you turned in a pleasant 
direction?” 

Apparently not, for he became gloomy again. 



THE JACKAL 


15a 


Pretty witness,” he muttered, looking down into his glass. 
“I have had enough of witnesses/ to-day and to-night; who's 
your pretty witness?” 

"The picturesque doctor's daughter, Miss Manette.” 

“She pretty?” 

“Is she not?” 

“No.” 

“Why, man alive, she was the admiration of the whole 
Court!” 

“Rot the admiration of the whole Court! Who made the 
Old Bailey a judge of beauty? 'She was a golden-haired doll.” 

“Do you know, Sydney,” said Mr. Stry ver, looking at him 
with sharp eyes, and slowly drawing a hand across his florin 
face: “do you know, I rather thought, at the time, that you 
sympathised with the golden-haired doll, and were quick to 
see what happened to the golden-haired doll?” 

“Quick to see what happened! If a girl, doll or no doll, 
swoons within a yard or two of a man’s nose, he can see it 
without a perspective-glass. 1 I pledge you, but I deny the 
beauty. And now I’ll have no more drink; I’ll get to bed/ 

When his host followed him out on the staircase with a 
candle, to light him down the stairs, the day was coldly look¬ 
ing in through its. grimy windows. When he got out of the 
house, the air was cold and sad, the dull sky overcast,/ the 
river dark and dim, the whole scene like a lifeless desert. 
And wreaths of dust were spinning round and round before 
the morning blast, as if the desert-sand had risen far away,’ 
and the first spray of it in its advance had begun to over¬ 
whelm the city. 

Waste forces within him, and a desert all around, this man 
^tood still on his way across a silent terrace, and saw for a 
moment, lying in the wilderness before him, a mirage of hon- 

* A telescope. 



156 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


curable ambition, self-denial, and perseverance. In the 
fair city of this vision, there were airy galleries from which 
the loves and graces looked upon him, gardens in which the 
fruits of life hung ripening, waters of Hope that sparkled in 
his sight. A moment, and it was gone. Climbing to a high 
chamber in a well of houses, he threw himself down in his 
clothes on a neglected bed, and its pillow was wet with wasted 
tears. 

Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than 
the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of 
their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his 
own happiness, sensible of, the blight on him, and resigning 
himself to let it eat him away. 





CHAPTER VI. 


HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE 

The quiet lodgings of DoctorManette were in a quiet street- 
corner not far from Soho-square. On the afternoon of a cer¬ 
tain fine Sunday, when the waves of four months had rolled 
over the trial for treason, and carried it, as to the public inter¬ 
est and memory, far out to sea, Mr. Jarvis Lorry walked along 
^ the sunny streets from Clerkenwell where he lived, on his way 
to dine with the Doctor. After several relapses into business- 
absorption, Mr. Lorry had become the Doctor’s friend, and 
the quiet street-corner was the sunny part of his life. 

On this certain fine Sunday, Mr. Lorry w T alked towards 
Soho, early in the afternoon, for three reasons of habit. 
Firstly, because, on fine Sundays, he often walked out, before 
dinner, with the Doctor and Lucie; secondly, because, on un¬ 
favourable Sundays, he was accustomed to be with them as 
the family friend, talking, reading, looking out of window, and 
generally getting through the day; thirdly, because he hap¬ 
pened to have his own little shrewd doubts to solve, and 
knew how the ways of the Doctor’s household pointed to that 
time as a likely time for solving them. 

A quainter corner than the corner where the Doctor lived, 
was not to be found in London. There was no way through 
it, and the front windows of the Doctor’s lodgings commanded 
a pleasant little vista of street that had a congenial air of 
retirement on it. There were few buildings then, north of 
the Oxford-road, and forest-trees flourished, and wild flowers 
grew', and the hawthorn blossomed, in the now vanished 
fields. As a consequence, country airs circulated in Soho with 

157 



16b 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


vigorous freedom, instead of languishing into the parish like 
stray paupers without a settlement; and there was many a 
good south wall, not far off, on which the peaches ripened in 
their season. 

The summer light struck into the corner brilliantly in the 
earlier part of the day; but, when the streets grew hot, the 
corner was in shadow, though not in shadow so remote but 
that you could see beyond it into a glare of brightness. It was 
a cool spot, staid but cheerful, a wonderful place for echoes, 
and a very harbour from the raging streets. 

There ought to have been a tranquil bark in such an an¬ 
chorage, and there was. The Doctor occupied two floors of a 
large still house, where several callings purported to be pur¬ 
sued by day, but whereof little was audible any day, and 
which was shunned by all of them at night. In a building 
at the back, attainable by a court-yard where a plane-try 
rustled its green leaves, church-organs claimed to be made 
and silver to be chased, and likewise gold to be beaten by 
some mysterious giant who had a golden arm starting out of 
the wall of the front hall—as if he had beaten himself precious, 
and menaced a similar conversion of all visitors. Very little 
of these trades, or of a lonely lodger rumoured to live up-stairs, 
or of a dim coach-trimming maker asserted to have a count¬ 
ing-house below, was ever heard or seen. Occasionally, a 
stray workman putting his coat on, traversed the hall, or a 
stranger peered about there, or a distant clink was heard 
across the court-yard, or a thump from the golden giant. 
These, how T ever, were only the exceptions required to prove 
the rule that the sparrows in the plane-tree behind the house, 
and the echoes in the corner before it, had their own way from 
Sunday morning unto Saturday night. 

DoctorManette received such patients here as his old repu« 
tation, and its revival in the floating w T hispers of his story, 


EEUNBREDS OF PEOPLE 


159 


brought him. His scientific knowledge, and his vigilance and 
skill in conducting ingenious experiments, brought him other¬ 
wise into moderate request, and he earned as much as he 
wanted. 

These things were within Mr. Jarvis Lorry’s knowledge, 
thoughts, and notice, when he rang the door-bell of the tran¬ 
quil house in the corner, on the fine Sunday afternoon. 

“Doctor Manette at home?” 

Expected home. 

“Miss Lucie at home?” 

Expected home. 

“Miss Pross at home?” 

Possibly at home, but of a certainty impossible for hand¬ 
maid to anticipate intentions of Miss Pross, as to admission or 
denial of the fact. 

“As I am at home myself,” said Mr. Lorry, “I’ll go up¬ 
stairs.” 

Although the-Doctor’s daughter had known nothing of the 
country of her birth, she appeared to have innately derived 
from it that ability to make much of little means, which is 
one of its most useful and most agreeable characteristics. 
Simple as the furniture was, it was set off by so many little 
adornments, of no value but for their taste and fancy, that 
its eifect was delightful. The disposition of everything in the 
rooms, from the largest object to the least; the arrangement 
of colours, the elegant variety and contrast obtained by 
thrift in trifles, by delicate hands, clear eyes, and good sense; 
were at once so pleasant in themselves, and so expressive of 
their originator, that, as Mr. Lorry stood looking about him, 
the very chairs and tables seemed to ask him, with something 
of that peculiar expression which he knew so well by this time, 
whether he approved. 

There were three rooms on a floor, and, the doors by which 


160 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


they communicated being put open that the air might pass 
freely through them all, Mr. Lorry, smilingly observant of 
that fanciful resemblance which he detected all around him, 
walked from one to another. The first was the best room, 
and in it were Lucie’s birds, and flowers, and books, and desk, 
and work-table, and box of water-colours; the second was the 
Doctor’s consulting-room, used also as the dining-room; the 
third, changingly speckled by the rustle of the plane-tree in 
the yard, was the Doctor’s bedroom, and there, in a corner, 
stood the disused shoemaker’s bench and tray of tools, much 
as it had stood on the fifth floor of the dismal house by the 
wine-shop, in the suburb of Saint Antoine in Paris. 

“I wonder,” said Mr. Lorry, pausing in his looking about, 
“that he keeps that reminder of his sufferings about him!” 

“And why wonder at that?” was the abrupt inquiry that 
made him start. 

It proceeded from Miss Pross, the wild red woman, strong 
of hand, whose acquaintance he had first made at the Royal 
George Hotel at Dover, and had since improved. 

“I should have thought— ”Mr. Lorry began. 

“Pooh! You’d have thought!” said Miss Pross; and Mr. 
Lorry left off. 

“How do you do?” inquired that lady then—sharply, and 
yet as if to express that she bore him no malice. 

“I am pretty well, I thank you,” answeredMr. Lorry, with 
meekness; “how are you?” 

“Nothing to boast of,” said Miss Pross. 

“Indeed?” 

“Ah! indeed!” said Miss Pross. “Iam very much put oul 
about my Ladybird.” 

“Indeed?” 

“For gracious sake say something else besides ‘indeed,’ qt 


HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE 


161 


you 11 fidget me to death/’ said Miss Pross*. whose character 
(dissociated from stature) was shortness. 

“Really, then?” saidMr. Lorry, as an amendment. 

“Really is bad enough,” returned Miss Pross, “but better. 
Yes, 1 am very much put out.” 

“May I ask the cause?” 

“1 don’t want dozens of people who are not at all worthy 
of Ladybird, to come here looking after her,” said Miss 
Pross. 

“Do dozens come for that purpose?” 

“Hundreds,” said Miss Pross. 

It was characteristic of this lady (as of some other people 
before her time and since) that whenever her original proposi¬ 
tion was questioned, she exaggerated it. 

“Dear me!” saidMr. Lorry, as the safest remark he could 
think of. 

“I have lived with the darling—or the darling has lived 
with me, and paid me for it; which she certainly should never 
have done, you may take your affidavit, if I could have afford¬ 
ed to keep either myself or her for nothing—since she was 
ten years old. And it’s really very hard,” said Miss 
Pross. 

Not seeing with precision what was very hard, Mr. Lorry 
shook his head; using that important part of himself as a sort 
of fairy cloak that would fit anything. 

“All sorts of people who are not in the least degree worthy 
of the pet, are always turning up,” said Miss Pross. “When 
you began it—” 

“7 began it, Miss Pross?” 

“Didn’t you? Who brought her father to life?” 

“Oh, if that was beginning it—” said Mr. Lorry. 

“It wasn’t ending it, I suppose? I say, when you began it, 
it was hard enough; not that I have any fault to find with 


162 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


DoctorManette, except that he is not worthy of such a daugh¬ 
ter, which is no imputation on him, for it was not to be expect¬ 
ed’that anybody should be, under any circumstances. But 
it really is doubly and trebly hard to have crowds and multi¬ 
tudes of people turning up after him (I could have forgiven 
him), to take Ladybird’s affections away from me.” 

Mr. Lorry knew Miss Pross to be very jealous, but he also 
knew her by this time to be, beneath the surface of her eccen¬ 
tricity, one of those unselfish creatures—found only among 
women—who will, for pure love and admiration, bind them¬ 
selves willing slaves, to youth when they have lost it, to 
beauty that they never had, to accomplishments that they 
were never fortunate enough to gain, to bright hopes that 
never shone upon their own sombre lives. He knew enough 
of the world to know that there is nothing in it better than 
the faithful service of the heart; so rendered and so free 
from any mercenary taint, he had such an exalted respect 
for it, that in the retributive arrangements made by his own 
m i n d— we all make such arrangements, more or less—he 
stationed Miss Pross much nearer to the lower Angels than 
many ladies immeasurably better got up both by Nature 
and Art, who had balances at Tellson’s. 

“There never was, nor will be, but one man worthy of 
Ladybird,” said Miss Pross; “and that was my brother Solo¬ 
mon, if he hadn’t made a mistake in life.” 

Here again: Mr. Lorry’s inquiries in to Miss Press’s personal 
history had established the fact that her brother Solomon was 
a heartless scoundrel who had stripped her of everything she 
possessed, as a stake to speculate with, and had abandoned 
her in her poverty for evermore, with no touch of compunc¬ 
tion. Miss Pross’s fidelity of belief in Solomon (deducting a 
mere trifle for this slight mistake) was quite a serious matter 
with Mr. Lorry, and had its weight in his good opinion of her 


HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE 


163 


“As we happen to be alone for'the moment, and are both 
people of business,” he said, when they had got back to the 
drawing-room and had sat down there in friendly relations, 

let me ask you—does the Doctor, in talking with Lucie, 
never refer to the shoemaking time, yet?” 

“Never.” 

“And yet keeps that bench and those tools beside him?” 

“Ah!” returned Miss Pross, shaking her head. “But I 
don’t say he don’t refer to it within himself.” 

“Do you believe that he thinks of it much?” 

“I do,” said Miss Pross. 

“Do you imagine—” Mr. Lorry had begun, \yhen Miss Pross 
took him up short with: 

“Never imagine anything. Have no imagination at all.” 

“I stand corrected; do you suppose—you go so far as to 
suppose, sometimes?’'’ 

“Now and then,” said Miss Pross. 

“Do you suppose,” Mr. Lorry went on, with a laughing 
twinkle in his bright eye, as it looked kindly at her, “that 
DoctorManette has any theory of his own, preserved through 
all those years, relative to the cause of his being so oppressed; 
perhaps, even to the name of his oppressor?” 

“I don’t suppose anything about it but what Ladybird tells 
me.” 

“And that is—?” 

“That she thinks he has.” 

“Now don’t be angry at my asking all these questions; be¬ 
cause I am a mere dull man of business, and you are a woman 
of business.” 

“Dull?” Miss Pross inquired, with placidity. 

Rather wishing his modest adjective away, Mr. Lorry re¬ 
plied, “No, no, no. Surely not. To return to business:— 
Is if not remarkable that Doctor Manette, unquestionably 


134 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


innocent of any crime as we' are all well assured lie is, should 
never touch upon that question? I will not say with me, 
though he had business relations with me many years ago, 
and we are now intimate; I will say with the fair daughter to 
whom he is so devotedly attached, and who is so devotedly 
attached to him? Believe me, Miss Pross, I don’t approach 
the topic with you, out of curiosity, but out of zealous inter- 

est.” 

“Well* To the best of my understanding, and bads the 
best, you’ll tell me,” saidMiss Pross, softened by the tone of 
the apology, “he is afraid of the whole subject.” 

4 4 Afrsiid. ?’’ 

“It’s plain enough, I should think, why he may be.. It s 
a dreadful remembrance. Besides that, his lpss of himself 
grew out of it. Not knowing how he lost himself, or how he 
recovered himself, he may never feel certain of not losing him¬ 
self again. That alone wouldn’t make the subject pleasant, 

[ should think.” 

It was a profounder remark than Mr. Lorry had looked for, 
“True,” said he, “and fearful to reflect upon. Yet, a doubt 
lurks in my mind, Miss Pross, whether it is good for Doctor 
Manette to have that suppression always shut up within him. 
Indeed, it is this doubt and the uneasiness it sometimes causes 
me that has led me to our present confidence.” 

“Can’t be helped,” said Miss Pross, shaking her head. 
“Touch that string, and he instantly changes for the worse. 
Better leave it alone. In short, must leave it alone, like or 
no like. Sometimes, he gets up in the dead of the night, and 
will be heard, by us overhead there, walking up and down, 
walking up ana down, in his room. Ladybird has learnt to 
know then that his mind is walking up and down, walking up 
and down, in his old prison. She hurries to him, and they go 
on together, walking up and down, walking up and down, until 


HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE 


165 


he is composed. But he never says a word of the true reason 
of his restlessness, to her, and she finds it best not to hint at it 
to him. In silence they go walking up and down together, 
walking up and down together, till her love and company 
'have brought him to himself.” 

Notwithstanding Miss Pross’s denial of her own imagina¬ 
tion, there was a perception of the pain of being monotonously 
haunted by one sad idea, in her repetition of the phrase, walk¬ 
ing up and down, which testified to her possessing such a 
thing. 

The corner has been mentioned as a wonderful corner for 
echoes; it had begun to echo so resoundingly to the tread of 
coming feet, that it seemed as though the very mention of 
that weary pacing to and fro had set it going. 

“Here they are!” said Miss Pross, rising to break up the 
conference; “and now we shall have hundreds of people pretty 
soon I” 

It was such a curious corner in its acoustical properties, 
such a peculiar Ear of a place, that as Mr. Lorry stood at the 
open window, looking for the father and daughter whose 
steps he heard, he fancied they would never approach. Not 
only would the echoes die away, as though the steps had 
gone; but, echoes of other steps that never came would be 
heard in their stead, and would die away for good when they 
seemed close at hand. However, father and daughter did 
at last appear, and Miss Pross was ready at the street door 
to receive them. 

Miss Pross was a pleasant sight, albeit wild, and red, and 
grim, taking off her darling’s bonnet when she came up¬ 
stairs, and touching it up with the ends of her handkerchief 
and blowing the dust off it, and folding her mantle ready 
for laying by, and smoothing her rich hair with as much 
pride as she could possibly have taken in her own hair if 


166 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


she had been the vainest and handsomest of women. Her 
darling was a pleasant sight too, embracing her and thank¬ 
ing her, and protesting against her taking so much trouble 
for her—which last she only dared to do playfully, or Miss 
Pross, sorely hurt, would have retired to her own chamber 
md cried. The Doctor was a pleasant sight too, looking on 
it them, and telling Miss Pross how she spoilt Lucie, in 
accents and with eyes that had as much spoiling in them as 
Miss Pross had, and would have had more if it were possible. 
Mr. Lorry was a pleasant sight too, beaming at all this in 
his little wig, and thanking his bachelor stars for having 
lighted him in his declining years to a Home. But, no 
Hundreds of people came to see the sights, and Mr. Lorry 
looked in vain for the fulfilment of Miss Pross’s prediction. 

Dinner-time, and still no Hundreds of people. In the ar¬ 
rangements of the little household, Miss Pross took charge of 
the lower regions, and always acquitted herself marvellously. 
Her dinners, of a very modest quality, were so well cooked 
and so well served, and so neat in their contrivances, half 
English and half French, that nothing could be better. 
Miss Pross’s friendship being of the thoroughly practical 
kind, she had ravaged Soho and the adjacent provinces, 
in search of impoverished French, who, tempted by shillings 
and half-crowns, would impart culinary mysteries to her. 
From these decayed sons and daughters of Gaul, she had 
acquired such wonderful arts, that the woman and girl who 
formed the staff of domestics regarded her as quite a Sorcer¬ 
ess, or Cinderella’s Godmother: who would send out for a 
fowl, a rabbit, a vegetable or two from the garden, and 
change them into anything she pleased. 

On Sundays, Miss Pross dined at the Doctor’s table, but. 
on other days persisted in taking her meals at unknown 
periods, «either in the lower regions, or in her own room on 


HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE 


167 


the second floor—a blue chamber, to which no one but he: 
Ladybird ever gained admittance. On this occasion, Miss 
Pross, responding'to Ladybird’s pleasant face and pleasant 
efforts to please her, unbent exceedingly; so the dinner was 
very pleasant, too. 

It was an oppressive day, and, after dinner, Lucie proposed 
that the wine should be carried out under the plane-tree, 
and they should sit there in the air. As everything turned 
upon her, and revolved about her, they went out under the 
plane-tree, and she carried the wine down for the special 
benefit of Mr. Lorry. She had installed herself, some time 
before, as Mr. Lorry’s cup-bearer; and while they sat under 
the plane-tree, talking, she kept his glass replenished. Mys¬ 
terious backs and ends of houses peeped at them as they 
talked, and the plane-tree whispered to them in its own way 
above their heads. 

Still, the Hundreds of people did not present themselves 
Mr. Darnay presented himself while they were sitting under 
the plane-tree, but he w T as only One. 

Doctor Manette received him kindly, and so did Lucie. 
But Miss Pross suddenly became afflicted with a twitching 
in the head and body, and retired into the house. She was 
not unfrequently the victim of this disorder, and she called 
it, in familiar conversation, “a fit of the jerks.” 

The Doctor was in his best condition, and looked specially 
young. The resemblance between him and Lucie was very 
strong at such times, and as they sat side by side, she leaning 
on his shoulder, and he resting his ami on the back of her 
chair, it was very agreeable to trace the likeness. 

He had been talking all day, on many subjects, and with 
unusual vivacity. “Pray, Doctor Manette,” said Mr. Darnay, 
as they sat under the plane-tree—and he said it in the natural 
pursuit of the topic in hand, which happened to be the old 


168 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


buildings of London— “have you seen much of the Tower ?’ 1 

“Lucie and I have been there; but only casually. We 
have seen enough of it, to know that it teems with interest; 
little more.” 

“/ have been there, as you remember, said Darnay, with 
a smile, though reddening a little angrily, in another 
character, and not in a character that gives facilities for 
seeing much of it. They told me a curious thing when I was 
there.” 

“What was that?” Lucie asked. 

“In making some alterations, the workmen came upon an 
old dungeon, which had been, for many years, built up and 
forgotten. Every stone of its inner wall was covered by 
inscriptions which had been carved by prisoners—dates, 
names, complaints, and prayers. Upon a corner stone in an 
angle of the wall, one prisoner, who seemed to have gone to 
execution, had cut as his last work, three letters. They were 
done with some very poor instrument, and hurriedly, with an 
unsteady hand. At first, they were read as D. I. C.; but, on 
being more carefully examined, the last letter was found to be 
G. There was no record or legend of any prisoner with 
those initials, and many fruitless guesses were made what the 
name could have been. At length, it was suggested that the 
letters were not initials, but the complete word, Dig. The 
floor was examined very carefully under the inscription, and, 
in the earth beneath a stone, or tile, or some fragment of 
paving, were found the ashes of a paper, mingled with the 
ashes of a small leathern case or bag. What the unknown 
prisoner had written will never be read, but he had written 
something, and hidden it away to keep it from the gaoler.” 
“My father,” exclaimed Lucie, “you are illl” 

He had suddenly started up, with his hand to his head. 
His manner and his look quite terrified them all. 


HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE 


1G9 


“No, my dear, not ill. There are large drops of rain falling,, 
and they made me start. We had better go in.” 

He recovered himself almost instantly. Rain was really 
falling in large drops, and he showed the back of his hand 
with rain-drops on it. But he said not a single word in 
reference to the discovery that had been told of, and, as they 
went into the house, the business eye of Mr. Lorry either 
detected, or fancied it detected, on his face, as it turned 
towards Charles Darnay, the same singular look that had 
been upon it when it turned towards him in the passages of 
the Court House. 

He recovered himself so quickly, however, that Mr. Lorry 
had doubts of his business eye. The arm of the golden giant 
in the hall was not more steady than he was, when he stopped 
under it to remark to them that he was not yet proof against 
slight surprises (if he ever would be), and that the rain had 
startled him. 

Tea-time, and Miss Pross making tea, with another fit of 
the jerks upon her, and yet no Hundreds of people. Mr. 
Carton had lounged in, but he made only Two. 

The night was so very sultry, that although they sat with 
doors and windows open, they were overpowered by heat. 
When the tea-table was done with, they all moved to one of 
the windows, and looked out into .the heavy twilight. Lucie 
sat by her father; Darnay sat beside her; Carton leaned 
against a window. The curtains were long and white, and 
some of the thunder-gusts that whirled into the corner, caught 
them up to the ceiling, and waved them like spectral wings. 

“The rain-drops are still falling, large, heavy, and few/ 
said DoctorManette. “It comes slowly.” 

“It comes surely,” said Carton. 

They spoke low, as people watching and waiting mosth 
do; as people in a dark room, watching and waiting for Light¬ 
ning, always do. 


170 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


There was a great hurry in the streets, or people speeding 
away to get shelter before the storm broke; the wonderful j 
corner for echoes resounded with the echoes of footsteps 
coming and going, yet not a footstep was there. 

“A multitude of people, and yet a solitude!” said Darnay, 
when they had listened for a while. 

“Is it not impressive, Mr. Darnay?” asked Lucie. Some- 
times, I have sat here of an evening, until I have fancied— ( 
but even the shade of a foolish fancy makes me shudder to- 
light when all is so black and solemn-” 

“Let us shudder too. We may know what it is.” 

“It will seem nothing to you. Such whims are only im¬ 
pressive as we originate them, I think; they are not to be 
communicated. I have sometimes sat here alone of an even- . 
mg, listening, until I have made the echoes out to be the 
echoes of all the footsteps that are coming by-and-by into 
our lives.” 

“There is a great crowd coming one day into our lives, if 
that be so,” Sydney Carton struck in, in his moody way. 

The footsteps were incessant, and the hurry of them became 
more and more rapid. The corner echoed and re-echoed 
with the tread of feet; some, as it seemed, under the windows; 
some, as it seemed, in the room; some coming, som£ going, 
some breaking off, some stopping altogether; all in the ! 
distant streets, and not one within sight. 

“Are all these footsteps destined to come to all of us, Miss 
Manette, or are we to divide them amoijg us?” 

“I don’t know, Mr. Darnay; I told you it was a foolish 
fancy, but you asked for it." When I have yielded myself to 
it, I have been alone, and then I have imagined them the 
footsteps of the people who are to come into my life, arm 
my father’s.” 

“I take them into mine!” said Carton. “I ask no questions 





HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE 


171 


and make no stipulations. There is a great crowd bearing 

down upon us, Miss Manette, and I see them-by the 

Lightning.” He added the last words, after there had been 
a vivid flash which had shown him lounging in the window. 

“And I hear them!” he added again, after a peal of thunder 
“Here they come, fast, fierce, and furious!” 

It was the rush and roar of rain that he typified, and it 
stopped him, for no voice could be heard in it. A memorable 
storm of thunder and lightning broke with that sweep of 
water, and there was not a moment’s interval in crash, and 
fire, and rain, until after the moon rose at midnight. 


The great bell of Saint Paul’s was striking One in the 
j cleared air, when Mr. Lorry, escorted by Jerry, high-booted 
, and bearing a lantern, set forth on his return-passage to 
Clerkenwell. There were solitary patches of road on the way 
between Soho and Clerkenwell, and Mr. Lorry, mindful of 
f footpads, always retained Jerry for this service: though it 
was usually performed a good two hours earlier. 

“What a night it has been! Almost a night, Jerry,” said 
Mr. Lorry, “to bring the dead out of their graves.” 

“I never see the night myself, master—nor yet I don’t 
expect to—w T hat would do that,” answered Jerry. 

‘ “Good night, Mr. Carton,” said the man of business. 
“Good night, Mr. Darnay. Shall we ever $ee such a night 
again, together!” 

Perhaps. Perhaps, see the great crowd of people with it> 

1 rush and roar, bearing down upon them, too. 






: 


CHAPTER VII. 

MONSEIGNEUR IN TOWN 

Monseigneur, one of the great lords in power at the Court, 
held his fortnightly reception in his grand hotel 1 in Paris. 
Monseigneur was in his inner room, his sanctuary of sanctu¬ 
aries, the Holiest of Holiests to the crowd of worshippers in 
the suite of rooms without. Monseigneur was about to take 
his chocolate. Monseigneur could swallow a great many 
things with ease, and was by some few sullen minds supposed 
to be rather rapidly swallowing France; but, his morning’s 
chocolate could not so much as get into the throat of Mon¬ 
seigneur, without the aid of four -strong men besides the 
Cook. 

Yes. It took four men, all four a-blaze with gorgeous 
decoration, and the Chief of them unable to exist with fewer 
than two gold watches in his pocket, emulative of the noble 
and chaste fashion set by Monseigneur, to conduct the happy 
chocolate to Monseigneur’s lips. One lacquey carried the 
chocolate-pot into the sacred presence; a second, milled and 
frothed the chocolate w T ith the little instrument he bore for 
that function; a third, presented the favoured napkin; a 
fourth (he of the two gold w r atches), poured the chocolate out. 
It was impossible for Monseigneur to dispense with one of 
these attendants on the chocolate and hold his high place 
under the admiring Heavens. Deep would have been the 
blot upon his escutcheon if his chocolate had been ignobly 
waited on by only three men; he must have died of two. 

Monseigneur had been out at a little supper last night, 

Dickens uses the w<?rd with its French significance, i, e., “ mansion.” 

172 





MONSEIGNEUR IN TOWN 


173 


where the Comedy and the Grand Opera were charmingly 
represented. Monseigneur was out at a little supper most 
nights, with fascinating company. So polite and so impres¬ 
sible was Monseigneur, that the Comedy and the Grand Opera 
had far more influence with him in the tiresome articles of 
state affairs and state secrets, than the needs of all France. 
A happy circumstance for France, as the like always is for all 
countries similarly favoured!—always was for England (by 
way of example), in the regretted days of the merry Stuart 1 
who sold it. 

Monseigneur had one truly noble idea of general public 
business, which was, to let everything go on in its own way; 
of particular public business, Monseigneur had the other truly 
noble idea that it must all go his way—tend to his own power 
and pocket. Of his pleasures, general and particular, Mon¬ 
seigneur had the other truly noble idea, that the world was 
made for them. The text of his order (altered from the origi¬ 
nal by only a pronoun, which is not much) ran: “The earth 
and the fulness thereof are mine, saith Monseigneur.” 

Yet, Monseigneur had slowly found that vulgar embar¬ 
rassments crept into his affairs, both private and public; and 
he had, as to both classes of affairs, allied himself perforce 
with a Farmer-General. As to finances public, because Mon¬ 
seigneur could not make anything at all of them, and must 
consequently let them out to somebody who could; as to 
finances private, because Farmer-Generals were rich, and 
Monseigneur, after generations of great luxury and expense, 
was growing poor. Hence Monseigneur had taken his sister 
from a convent, while there was yet time to ward off the im¬ 
pending veil, the cheapest garment she could wear, and had 
bestowed her as a prize upon a very rich Farmer-General, 

1 Charles II. Read Green’s, Short History of the English People, Chap, ix, 
Sec. 3. 


174 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


poor in family. Which Farmer-General, carrying an appro- j 
priate cane with a golden apple on the top of it, was now j 
among the company in the outer rooms, much prostrated be- i 
fore by mankind—always excepting superior mankind of the 
blood of Monseigneur, who, his own wife included, looked 
down upon him with the loftiest contempt. 

A sumptuous man was the Farmer-General. Thirty 
horses stood in his stables, twenty-four male domestics sat j 
in his halls, six body-women waited on his wife. As one who 
pretended to do nothing but plunder and forage where he 
could, the Farmer-General—howsoever his matrimonial rela¬ 
tions conduced to social morality—was at least the greatest 
reality among the personages who attended at the hotel of 
Monseigneur that day. 

For, the rooms, though a beautiful scene to look at, and 
adorned with every device of decoration that the taste and I 
skill of the time could achieve, were, in truth, not a sound bus- I 
iness; considered with any reference to the scarecrows in the 
rags and nightcaps elsewhere (and not so far off, either, but 
that the watching towers of Notre Dame, almost equidistant 
from the two extremes, could see them both), they would 
have been an exceedingly uncomfortable business—if that 
could have been anybody’s business, at the house of Mon- [ 
seigneur.' Military officers destitute of military knowledge; ; 
naval officers with no idea of a ship; civil officers without a 
notion of affairs; brazen ecclesiastics, of the worst world 
worldly, with sensual eyes, loose tongues, and looser lives; : 
all totally unfit for their several callings, all lying horribly in 
pretending to belong to them, but all nearly or remotely of 
the order of Monseigneur, and therefore foisted on all public 
employments from which anything was to be got; these wexe 
to be told off by the score and the score. 1 People not immedi- 

1 On the condition of France preceding the Revolution see Cambridge 
Modern History , Vol. VIII, Chap. n. 





MONSEIGNEUB, IN TOWN 


175 


ately connected with Monseigneur or the State, yet equally 
unconnected with anything that was real, or with lives passed 
in travelling by any straight road to any true earthly end, were 
no less abundant. Doctors who made great fortunes out of 
dainty remedies for imaginary disorders that never existed, 
smiled upon their courtly patients in the ante-chambers of 
Monseigneur. Projectors who had discovered every kind of 
remedy for the little evils with which the State was touched, 
except the remedy of setting to work in earnest to root out a 
single sin, poured their distracting babble into any ears they 
could lay hold of, at the reception of Monseigneur. Unbe¬ 
lieving Philosophers who were remodelling the world with 
words, and making card-towers of Babel to scale the skies 
with, talked with Unbelieving Chemists Who had an eye on 
the transmutation of metals, at this wonderful gathering ac¬ 
cumulated by Monseigneur. Exquisite gentlemen of the 
finest breeding, which was at that remarkable time—and has 
been since—to be known by its fruits of indifference to every 
natural subject of human interest, were in the most exem¬ 
plary state of exhaustion, at the hotel of Monseigneur. Such 
homes had these various notabilities left behind them in the 
fine world of Paris, that the spies among the assembled devo¬ 
tees of Monseigneur—forming a goodly half of the polite com¬ 
pany—would have found it hard to discover among the angels 
of that sphere one solitary wife, whQ, in her manners and ap¬ 
pearance, owned to being a Mother. Indeed, except for the 
mere act of bringing a troublesome creature into this world— 
which does not go far towards the realisation of the name of 
mother—thfere was no such thing known to the fashion. 
Peasant women kept the unfashionable babies close, and 
brought them up, and charming grandmammas of sixty 
dressed and supped as at twenty. 

The leprosy of unreality disfigured every human creature 



176 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


in attendance upon Monseigneur. In the outermost room 
were half a dozen exceptional people who had had, for a few 
years, some vague misgiving in them that things in general 
were going rather wrong. As a promising way of setting them 
right, half of the half-dozen had become members of a fantas¬ 
tic sect of Convulsionists, 1 and were even then considering 
within themselves whether they should foam, rage, roar, and 
turn cataleptic on the spot—thereby setting up a highly in¬ 
telligible finger-post to the Future, for Monseigneur’s guid¬ 
ance. Besides these Dervishes, were other three who had 
rushed into another sect, which mended matters with a jargon 
about “the Centre of Truth:” holding that Man had got out 
of the Centre of Truth—which did not need much demonstra¬ 
tion_but had not got out of the Circumference, and that he 

was to be kept from flying out of the Circumference, and was 
even to be shoved back into the Centre, by fasting and seeing 
of spirits. Among these, accordingly, much discoursing with 
spirits went on—and it did a world of good which never be¬ 
came manifest. 

But, the comfort was, that all the company at the grand 
hotel of Monseigneur were perfectly dressed. If the Day of 
Judgment had only been ascertained to be a dress day, every¬ 
body there would have been eternally correct. Such frizz¬ 
ling and powdering and sticking up of hair, such delicate 
complexions artificially preserved and mended, such gallant 
swords to look at, and such delicate honour to the sense of 
smell, would surely keep anything going, for ever and ever. 
The exquisite gentlemen of the finest breeding wore little pen¬ 
dent trinkets that chinked as they languidly moved; these 
golden fetters rang like precious little bells; and what with 
that ringing, and with the rustle of silk and brocade and fine 
i This refers to those who resorted to Mesmer to he “magnetized.” 







MONSEIGNEUR IN TOWN 


177 


linen, there was a flutter in the air that fanned Saint Antoine 1 
and his devouring hunger far away. 

Dress was the one unfailing talisman and charm used for 
keeping all things in their places. Everybody was dressed 
tor a Fancy Ball that was never to leave off. From the Pal¬ 
ace of the Tuileries, through Monseigneur and the whole 
Court, through the Chambers, the Tribunals of Justice, and 
all society (except the scarecrows), the Fancy Ball descended 
to the Common Executioner: who, in pursuance of the charm, 
was required to officiate “frizzled, powdered, in a gold-laced 
coat, pumps, and white silk stockings.” At the gallows and 
the wheel—the axe was a rarity—Monsieur Paris, as it was 
the episcopal mode among his brother Professors of the prov¬ 
inces, Monsieur Orleans, and the rest, to call him, presided in 
this dainty dress. And who among the company at Mon¬ 
seigneur’s reception in that seventeen hundred and eightieth 
year of our Lord, could possibly doubt, that a system rooted 
in a frizzled hangman, powdered, gold-laced, pumped, and 
white-silk stockinged, would see the very stars outl 

Monseigneur having eased his four men of their burdens and 
taken his chocolate, caused the doors of the Holiest of Holi- 
ests to be thrown open, and issued forth. Then, what sub¬ 
mission, what cringing and fawning, what servility, what ab¬ 
ject humiliation! As to bowing down in body and spirit, 
nothing in that way was left for Heaven—which may have 
been one among other reasons why the worshippers of 
Monseigneur never troubled it. 

Bestowing a word of promise here and a smile there, a whis¬ 
per on one happy slave and a wave of the hand on another, 
Monseigneur affably passed through his rooms to the remote 

* The Rue St. Antoine is still one of the principal streets in the poorest 
quarter of Paris. St. Antoine was formerly a faubourg, or suburb, of *>.9 
city.' It is within the present limits of the city and composes the 4th ai . * * 
flissement (ward). 




A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


1 


178 




region of the Circumference of Truth. There, Monseigneui 
turned, and came back again, and so in due course of time got 
himself shut up in his sanctuary by the chocolate sprites, and 
was seen no more. 

The show being over, the flutter in the air became‘quite a 
little storm, and the precious little bells went ringing down¬ 
stairs. There was soon but one person left of all the crowd, 
and he, with his hat under his arm and his snuff-box in his 
hand, slowly passed among the mirrors on his way out 

devote you,” said this person, stopping at the last door 
on his way, and turning in the direction of the sanctuary, to 
the Devil!” 

With that, he shook the snuff from his fingers as if he had 
shaken the dust from his feet, and quietly walked down-stairs. 

He was a man of about sixty, handsomely dressed, haughty 
in manner, and with a face like a fine mask. A face of a 
transparent paleness; every feature in it clearly defined; one 
set expression on it. The nose, beautifully formed otherwise, 
was very slightly pinched at the top of each nostril. In 
those two compressions, or dints, the only little change that 
the face ever showed, resided. They persisted in changing 
colour sometimes, and they would be occasionally dilated and 
contracted by something like a faint pulsation; then they 
gave a look of treachery, and cruelty, to the whole counte¬ 
nance. Examined with attention, its capacity of helpin 6 
such a look was to be found in the line of the mouth, and 
the lines of the orbits of the eyes, being much too horizontal j 
and thin; still, in the effect the face made, it was a handsome 
face, and a remarkable one. 

Its owner went down-stairs into the court-yard, got into 
his carriage, and drove away. Not many people had talked 
with him at the reception; he had stood in a little space 
apart, and Monseigneur might have been warmer in his 




MONSEIGNEUR IN TOWN 


179 

manner. It appeared, under the circumstances, rather agree* 
able to him to see tli£ common people dispersed before his 
horses, and often barely escaping from being run down. His 
man drove as if he were charging an enemy, and the furious 
recklessness of the man brought no check into the face, or 
to the lips, of the master. The complaint had sometimes 
made itself audible, even in that deaf city and dumb age, 
that, in the narrow streets without footways, the fierce 
patrician custom of hard driving endangered and maimed the 
mere vulgar in a barbarous manner. But, few cared enough 
for that to think of it a second time, and, in this matter, as 
in all others, the common wretches were left to get out of 
their difficulties as they could. 

With a wild rattle and clatter, and an inhuman abandon¬ 
ment of consideratibn not easy to be understood in these 
days, the carriage dashed through streets and swept round 
corners, with women screaming before it, and men clutching 
each other and clutching children out of its way. At last, 
swooping at a street corner by a fountain, one of its wheels 
came to a sickening little jolt, and there was a loud cry 
from a number of voices, and the horses reared and plunged. 

But for the latter inconvenience, the carriage probably 
would not have stopped; carriages were often known to drive 
on, and leave their wounded behind, and why not? But 
the frightened valet had got down in aTurry, and there were 
twenty hands at the horses’ bridles. 

“What has gone wrong?” said Monsieur, calmly looking out. 

A talf man in a nightcap had caught up a bundle from 
among the feet of the hprses, and had laid it on the base¬ 
ment of the fountain, and was down in the mud and wel, 
howling over it like a wild animal. 

“Pardon, Monsieur the Marquis!” said a ragged and sub 
missive man, “it is a child.” 



J8G 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“Why does make that abominable noise? Is it his 

child?” # . „ 

“Excuse me, Monsieur the Marquis—it is a pity—yfes. 

The fountain was a little removed; for the street opened, 
where it was, into a space some ten or twelve yards square, j 
\s the tall man suddenly got up from the ground, and 
came running at the carriage, Monsieur the Marquis clapped 
his hand for an instant on his sword-hilt. 

“Killed I” shrieked the man, in wild desperation, extending 
both arms at their length above his head, and staring at him. 
“Dead!” 

The people closed round, and looked at Monsieur the \ 
Marquis. There was nothing revealed by the many eybs that ! 
looked at him but watchfulness and eagerness; there was j 
no visible menacing or anger. NeitheV did the people say 
anything; after the first cry, they had been silent, and they 
remained so. The voice of the submissive man who had 
spoken, was flat and tame in its extreme submission. Mon¬ 
sieur the Marquis ran his eyes over them all, as if they had 
been mere rats come out of their holes. 

He took out his purse. 

“It is extraordinary to me,” said he, “that y#u people ; 
cannot take care of yourselves and your children. One or the ; 
other or you is for ever in the way. How do I know what 
injury you have done my horses? See! Give him that. 

He threw out a gold coin for the valet to pick up, and all 
the heads craned forward that all the eyes might look down 
at it as it fell. The tall man called out again with a most 
unearthly cry, “Dead!” 

He was arrested by the quick arrival of another man, for 
whom the rest made way. On seeing him, the miserable 
creature fell upon his shoulder, sobbing and crying, and 
pointing to the fountain, where some women were stooping 





MONSEIGNEUR IN TOWN 


181 


over the motionless bundle, and moving gently about it. 
They were as silent, however, as the men. 

“I know all, I know all,” said the last comer. “Be a 
brave man, my Gaspard! It is better for the poor little 
plaything to die so, than to live. It has died in a moment 
without pain. Could it have lived an hour as happily?” 

“You are a philosopher, you there,” said the Marquis, 
smiling. “How do they call you?” 

“They call me Defarge.” 

“Of what trade?” 

“Monsieur theMarquis, vendor of wine.” 

“Pick up that, philosopher and vendor of wine,” said the 
Marquis, throwing him another gold coin, “and spend it as 
you will. The horses there; are they right?” 

Without deigning to look at the assemblage a second time. 
Monsieur the Marquis leaned back in his seat, and was just 
being driven away with the air of a gentleman who had 
accidentally broken some common thing, and had paid for it, 
and could afford to pay for it; when his ease was suddenly 
disturbed by a coin flying into his carriage, and ringing on 
its floor. 

“Hold!” said Monsieur the Marquis. “Hold the horses! 
Who threw that?” 

He looked to the spot where Defarge the vendor of wine 
had stood, a moment before; but the wretched father was 
grovelling on his face on the pavement in that spot, and the 
figure that stood beside him was the figure of a dark stout 
woman, knitting. 

“You dogs!” said the Marquis, but smoothly, and with 
an unchanged front, except as to the spots on his nose: “I 
would ride over any of you very willingly, and exterminate, 
you from the earth. If I knew which rascal threw at the 
carriage, and if that brigand were sufficiently near it, he 
should be crushed under the wheels.” 





A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


182 

So cowed was their condition, and so long and haid their 
experience of what such a man could do to them, within the 
law and beyond it, that not a voice, or a hand, or even an eye 
was raised. Among the men, not one. But the woman who 
stood knitting looked up steadily, and looked the Marquis in 
the face. It was not for his dignity to notice it; his con¬ 
temptuous eyes passed over her, and over all the other rats; 
and he leaned back in his seat again, and gave the word 
“Go on!” 

He was driven on, and other carriages came whirling by 
in quick succession; the Minister, the State-Projector, the 
Farmer-General, the Doctor, the Lawyer, the Ecclesiastic, the 
Grand Opera, the Comedy, the whole Fancy Ball in a bright 
continuous flow, came whirling by. The rats had crept out 
of their holes to look on, and they remained looking on for 
hours; soldiers and police often passing between them and 
the spectacle, and making a barrier behind which they slunk, 
and through which they peeped. The father had long ago 
taken up bis bundle and hidden himself away with it, when 
the women who had tended the bundle while it lay on the 
base of the fountain, sat there watching the running of the 
water and the rolling of the Fancy Ball—when the one woman 
who had stood conspicuous, knitting, still knitted on with 
the steadfastness of Fate. The water of the fountain ran, the 
swift river ran, the day ran into evening, so much life in 
the city ran into death according to rule, time and tide 
waited for no man, the rats were sleeping close together in 
their dark holes again, the Fancy Ball was lighted up at 
supper, all things ran their course. 





CHAPTER VIII. 

MONSEIGNEUR IN THE COUNTRY. 

A beautiful landscape, with the corn bright in it, but not 
abundant. Patches of poor rye where corn should have been, 
patches of poor peas and beans, patches of most coarse vege¬ 
table substitutes for wheat. On inanimate nature, as on the 
men and women who cultivated it, a prevalent tendency 
towards an appearance of vegetating unwillingly—a dejected 
disposition to give up, and wither away. 

Monsieur the Marquis in his travelling carriage (which 
might have been lighter), conducted by four post-horses and 
two postilions, fagged up a steep hill. A blush on the 
cou itenance of Monsieur the Marquis was no impeachment of 
h’s high breeding; it was not from within; it was occasioned 
by an external circumstance beyond his control—the setting 

SUE.. 

The sunset struck so brilliantly into the travelling carriage 
when it gained the hill-top, that its occupant was steeped in 
crimson. “It will die out,” said Monsieur the Marquis, 
glancing at his hands, “directly.” 

In effect, the sun was so low that it dipped at the moment. 
When the heavy drag had been adjusted to the wheel, and 
the carriage slid down hill, with a einderous smell, in a cloud 
of dust, the red glow departed quickly; the sun and the 
Marquis going down together, there was no glow left when 
the drag was taken off. 

But, there remained a broken country, bold and open, a 
little village at the bottom of the hill, a broad sweep and 
rise beyond it, a church-tower, a windmill, a forest for the 

183 






184 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


chase, and a crag with a fortress on it used as a prison 
Round upon all these darkening objects as the night drew on, 
the Marquis looked, with the air of one who was coming 
near home. 

The village had its one poor street, with its poor brewery, 
p oor tannery, poor tavern, poor stable-yard for relay of j 
post-horses, poor fountain, all usual poor appointments. It 
had its poor people too. All its people were poor, and 
many of them were sitting at their doors, shredding spare 
onions and the like for supper, while many were at the 
fountain, washing leaves, and grasses, and any such small 
yieldings of the earth that could be eaten. Expressive signs 
of what made them poor, were not wanting; the tax for the 
state, the tax for the church, the tax for the lord, tax local 
and tax general, were to be paid here and to be paid there, 
according to solemn inscription in the little village, until 
the wonder was, that there was any village left unswallowed. 1 j 

Few children were to be seen, and no dogs. As to the 
men and women, their choice on earth was stated in the 
prospect—Life on the lowest terms that could sustain it, 
down in the little village under the mill; or captivity and 
Oeath in the dominant prison on the crag. 

Heralded by a courier in advance, and by the cracking of ’ 
his postilions’ whips, which twined snake-like about their 
heads in the evening air, as if he came attended by the 
Furies, Monsieur the Marquis drew up in his travelling 
carriage at the posting-house gate. It was hard by the 
fountain, and the peasants suspended their operations to look 
at him. He looked at them, and saw in them, without 
knowing it, the slow sure filing down of misery-worn face 
and figure, that was to make the meagreness of Frenchmen 

i To understand what the burden of taxation was, read Cambridge Mod- 
u-n History, Vol. VIII, pp. 70-71. 





MONSEIGNEUR IN THE COUNTRY 


185 


an English superstition which should survive the truth 
through the best part of a hundred years. 

Monsieur the Marquis cast his eyes over the submissive? 
faces that drooped before him, as the like of himself had 
drooped before Monseigneur of the Court—only the differenee 
was, that these faces drooped merely to suffer and not to. 
propitiate—when a grizzled mender of the roads joined 
the group. 

“Bring me hither that fellow!” said the Marquis to the 
courier. 

The fellow was brought, cap in hand, and the other fellows 
closed round to look and to listen, in the manner of the people 
at the Paris fountain. 

“I passed you on the road?” 

“Monseigneur, it is true. I had the honor of being passed 
on the road.” 

“Coming up the hill, and at the top of the hill, both?” 

“Monseigneur, it is true.”. 

“What did you look at, so fixedly?” 

“Monseigneur, I looked at the man.” 

He stooped a little, and with his tattered blue cap pointed 
under the carriage. All his fellows stooped to look under 
the carriage. 

“What man, pig? And why look there?” 

“Pardon, Monseigneur; he swung by the chain of the shoe 
-—the drag.” 

“Who?” demanded the traveller. 

“Monseigneur, the man.” 

“May the Devil carry away these idiots! How do you 
call the man? You know all the men of this part of the 
country. Who was he?” 

“Your clemency, Monseigneur! He was not of this part 
of the country. Of all the days of my life, I never saw him.” 



186 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Swinging by the chain? To be suffocated: 

With your gracious permission, that was the wonder ol 

it Monseigneur. His head hanging over—like this! 

He turned himself sideways to the carriage, and leaned 
back, with his face thrown up to the sky, and his hea,d hang¬ 
ing down; then recovered himself, fumbled with his cap, 
and made a bow. 

“What was he like?” . 

“Monseigneur, he was whiter than the miller. All covered 
with dust, white as a spectre, tall as a spectre!” 

The picture produced an immense sensation in the little 
crowd; but all eyes, without comparing notes with other 
eyes, looked at Monsieur the Marquis. Perhaps, to observe 
whether he had any spectre on his conscience. 

“Truly, you did well,” said the Marquis, felicitously sensi¬ 
ble that such vermin were not to ruffle him, “to see a thief 
accompanying my carriage, and not open that great mouth 
of yours. Bah! Put him aside, Monsieur Gabelle!” 

Monsieur Gabelle was the Postmaster, and some other 
taxing functionary united; he had come out with great 
obsequiousness to assist at this examination, and had held 
the examined by the drapery of his arm in an official 
manner. 

“Bah I Go aside 1” said Monsieur Gabelle. 

“Lay hands on this stranger if he seeks to lodge in your 
village to-night, and be sure that his business is honest, 
Gabelle.” 

“Monseigneur, I am fettered to devote myself to youi 
orders.” 

“Did he run away, fellow?—where is that Accursed? 

The accursed was already under the carriage with some 
half-dozen particular friends, pointing out the chain with his 
blue cap. Some half-dozen other particular friends promptly 




MONSEIGNEUR IN THE COUNTRY 


187 


hauled him out, and presented him breathless to Monsieur 
the Marquis. 

“Did the man run away, Dolt, when we stopped for the 
drag?” 

“Monseigneur, he precipitated himself over the hill-side, 
head first, as a person plunges into the river.” 

“See to it, Gabelle. Go on!” 

The half-dozen who were peering at the chain were still 
among the wheels, like sheep; the wheels turned so suddenly 
that they were lucky to save their skins and bones; they had 
very little else to save, or.they might not have been so 
fortunate. 

The burst with which the carriage started out of the 
village and up the rise beyond, was soon checked by the 
steepness of the hill. Gradually, it subsided to a foot-pace, 
swinging and lumbering upward among the many sweet 
scents of a summer night. The postilions, with a thousand 
gossamer gnats circling about them in lieu of the Furies, 
quietly mended the points to the lashes of their whips; the 
valet walked by the horses; the courier was audible, trotting 
on ahead into the dim distance. 

At the steepest point of the hill there was a little burial- 
ground, with a Cross and a new large figure of Our Saviour 
on it; it was a poor figure in wood, done by some inex¬ 
perienced rustic carver, but he had studied the figure from 
the life—his own life, maybe—for it was dreadfully spare 
and thin. 

To this distressful emblem of a great distress that had 
long been growing worse, and was not at its worst, a woman 
was kneeling. She turned her head as the carriage r came up 
to her, rose quickly, and presented herself at the carriage- 
doer. 

“It is you,Monseigneur! Monseigneur, a petition.” 






188 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


With an exclamation of impatience, but with his unchange¬ 
able face, Monseigneur looked out. 

“How, then! What is it? Always petitions!” 

“Monseigneur. For the love of the great God! My 
husband, the forester.” 

“What of your husband, the forester? . Always the same 
with you people. He cannot pay something? ^ 

“He has paid all,Monseigneur. He is dead. 

“Well! He is quiet. Can I restore him to you?” 

“Alas, no, Monseigneur! But he lies yonder, under a 
little heap of poor grass.” 

“Well?” 

“Monseigneur, there are so many little heaps of poor 
grassr 

“Again, well?” 

She looked an old woman, but was young. Her manner 
was one of passionate grief; by turns she clasped her veinous 
and knotted hands together with wild energy, and laid one of 
them on the carriage-door—tenderly, caressingly, as if it had 
been a human breast, and could be expected to feel the ap- 

pealing touch. . J 

“Monseigneur, hear me! Monseigneur, hear my petition! 
My husband died of want; so many die of want; so many more 
will die of want.” 

“Again, well? Can I feed them?” 

“Monseigneur, the good God knows; but I don t ask it. Mj 
petition is, that a morsel of stone or wood, with my husband’s 
name, may be placed over him to show where he lies. Other¬ 
wise, the place will be quickly forgotten, it will never be 
found when I am dead of the same malady, I shall be laid 
under some other heap of poor grass. Monseigneur, they are 
so many, they increase so fast, there is so much want. Mon¬ 
seigneur! Monseigneur!” 




MONSEIGNEUR IN THE COUNTRY 


189 


The valet had put her away from the door, the carriage had 
broken into a brisk trot, the postilions had quickened the 
pace, she was left far behind, andMonseigneur, again escorted 
by the Furies, was rapidly diminishing the league or two of 
distance that remained between him and his chateau. 

The sweet scents of the summer night rose all around him, 
and rose, as the rain falls, impartially, on the dusty, ragged, 
and toil-worn group at the fountain not far away; to whom 
the mender of roads, with the aid of the blue cap without 
which he was nothing, still enlarged upon his man like a spec¬ 
tre, as long as they could bear it. By degrees, as they could 
Dear no more, they dropped off one by one, and lights twinkled 
in little casements; which lights, as the casements darkened, 
and more stars came out, seemed to have shot up into the sk) 
instead of having been extinguished. 

The shadow of a large high-roofed house, and of man); 
overhanging trees, was upon Monsieur the Marquis by that 
time: an'd the shadow was exchanged for the light of a flam¬ 
beau, as his carriage stopped, and the great door of his chateau 
was opened to him. 

“M-msieur Charles, whom I expect; is he arrived from Eng- 
lar r ' ; 

‘ X^onseigneur, not yet.” 





CHAPTER IX. 


THE GORGON’S HEAD 

It was a heavy mass of building, that chateau of Monsieur 
the Marquis, with a large stone court-yard before it, and two 
stone sweeps of staircase meeting in a stone terrace before the 
principal door. A stony business altogether, with heavy stone 
balustrades, and stone urns, and stone flowers, and stone 
faces of men, and stone heads of lions, in all directions. As if 
the Gorgon’s head had surveyed it, when it was finished, two 
centuries ago. 

Up the broad flight of shallow steps,Monsieur theMarquis, 
flambeau preceded, went from his carriage, sufficiently dis¬ 
turbing the darkness to elicit loud remonstrance from an owl 
in the roof of the great pile of stable building away among the 
trees. All else was so quiet, that the flambeau carried up the 
steps, and the other flambeau held at the great door, burnt as 
if they were in a close room of state, instead of being in the 
open night-air. Other sound than the owl’s voice there was 
none, save the falling of a fountain into its stone basin; for, 
it was one of those dark nights that hold their breath by the 
hour together, and then heave a long low sigh, and hold their 
breath again. 

The great door clanged behind him, and Monsieur theMar¬ 
quis crossed a hall grim with certain old boar-spears, swords, 
and knives of the chase; grimmer with certain heavy riding- 
rods and riding-whips, of which many a peasant, gone to his 
benefactor Death, had felt the weight when his lord was 
angry. 

Avoiding the larger rooms, which were dark and made fast 

190 




THE GORGON’S HEAD 


191 


for the night, Monsieur the Marquis, with his flambeau-bearer 
going on before, went up the staircase to a door in a corridor. 
This thrown open, admitted him to his own private apartment 
of three rooms: his bed-chamber and two others. High, vault¬ 
ed rooms with cool uncarpeted floors, great dogs upon the 
hearths for the burning of wood in winter time, and all luxu¬ 
ries befitting the state of a marquis in a luxurious age and 
country. The fashion of the last Louis but one, of the line 
that was never to break—the fourteenth Louis—was con¬ 
spicuous in their rich furniture; but, it was diversified by 
many objects that were illustrations of old pages in the history 
of France. 

A supper-table was laid for two, in the third of the rooms; 
a round room, in one of the chateau’s four extinguisher- 
topped towers . 1 A small lofty room, with its window wide 
open, and the wooden jalousie-blinds 2 closed, so that the dark 
night only showed in slight horizontal lines of black, alter¬ 
nating with their broad lines of stone color. 

“My nephew,” said the Marquis, glancing at the supper 
preparation; “they said he was not arrived.” 

Nor was he; but, he had been expected with Monseigneur. 

“Ah! It is not probable he will arrive to-night; neverthe¬ 
less, leave the table as it is. I shall be ready in a quarter of an 
hour.” 

In a quarter of an hour Monseigneur was ready, and sat 
down alone to his sumptuous and choice supper. His chair 
was opposite to the window, and he had taken his soup, and 
was raising his glass of Bordeaux to his lips, when he put it 
down. 

“What is that?” he calmly asked, looking with attention at 
the horizontal lines of black and stone colour. 

1 A characteristic feature of French chateaux, 

2 Slatted blinds: “Venetianblinds.” 



192 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“Monseigneur? That?” 

“Outside the blinds. Open the blinds.” 

It was done. 

“Well?” 

“Monseigneur, it is nothing. The trees and the night are 
all that are here.” 

The servant who spoke, had thrown the blinds wide, had 
looked out into the vacant darkness, and stood, with that 
blank behind him, looking round for instructions. 

“Good,” said the imperturbable master. “Close them 
again.” 

That was done too, and the Marquis went on with his 
supper. He was half-way through it, when he again stopped 
with his glass in his hand, hearing the sound of wheels. It 
came on briskly, and came up to the front of the chateau. 

“Ask who is arrived.” 

It was the nephew of Monseigneur. He had been some 
few leagues behind Monseigneur, early in the afternoon. 
He had diminished the distance rapidly, but not so rapidly 
as to come up with Monseigneur on the road. He had heard 
of Monseigneur, at the posting-houses, as being before him. 

He was to be told (said Monseigneur) that supper awaited 
him then and there, and that he was prayed to come to it. 

' In a little while he came. He had been known in England 
as Charles Darnay. 

Monseigneur received him in a courtly manner, but they 
did not shake hands. 

“You left Paris yesterday, sir?” he said to Monseigneur 
as he took his seat at table. 

“Yesterday. And you?” 

“I come direct.” 

“From London?” 

“Yes.” 


THE GORGON’S HEAD 


193 


“You have been a long time coming,” said the Marquis, 
with a smile. 

“On the contrary; I come direct.” 

Pardon me! I mean not a long time on the journey; a 
long time intending the journey.” 

“I have been detained by”—the nephew stopped a moment 
in his answer—“various business.” 

“W ithout doubt,” said the polished uncle. 

So long as a servant was present, no other words passed 
between them. W T hen coffee had been served and they were 
alone together, the nephew, looking at the uncle and meeting 
the eyes of the face that was like a fine mask, opened a con¬ 
versation. 

“I have come back, sir, as you anticipate, pursuing the 
object that took me away. It carried me into great and un¬ 
expected peril; but it is a sacred object, and if it had carried 
me to death I hope it would have sustained me.” 

“Not to death,” said the uncle; “it is not necessary to say 
to death.” 

“I doubt, sir,” returned the nephew, “whether, if it had 
carried me to the utmost brink of death, you would have 
cared to stop me there.” 

The deepened marks in the nose, and the lengthening of 
the fine straight lines in the cruel face, looked ominous as to 
that; the uncle made a graceful gesture of protest, which was 
so clearly a slight form of good breeding that it was not re 
assuring. 

“Indeed, sir,” pursued the nephew, “for anything I know, 
you may have expressly worked to give a more suspicious 
appearance to the suspicious circumstances that surrounded 
me.” 

“No, no, no,” said the uncle, pleasantly. 

“But, however that may be,” resumed the nephew, gianc- 





194 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


ing at him with deep distrust, “I know that your diplomacy 
would stop me by any means, and would know no scruple as 

to means.” . 

“My friend, I told you so,” said the uncle, with a fine pul- 

sation in the two marks. “Do me the favour to recall that 
I told you so, long ago.” 

«I it.** 

“Thank you,” said the Marquis—very sweetly indeed. 
His tone lingered in the air, almost like the tone of a musi- 
cal instrument. 

“In effect, sir,” pursued the nephew, “I believe it to be 
at once your bad fortune, and my good fortune, that has 
kept me out of a prison in France here.” . ; 

“I do not quite understand,” returned the uncle, sipping 
his coffee. “Dare I ask you to explain?” 

“I believe that if you were not in disgrace with the Court, 
and had not been overshadowed by that cloud for years past, 
a letter de cachet 1 would have sent me to some fortress in¬ 
definitely.” 

“It is possible,” said the uncle, with great calmness. k or 
the honour of the family, I could even resolve to incommode 
you to that extent. Pray excuse me! 

“I perceive that, happily for me, the Reception of the day 
before yesterday was, as usual, a cold one,” observed the 
nephew. 

“I would not say happily, my friend,” returned the uncle, 
with refined politeness; “I would not be sure of that. A good 
opportunity for consideration, surrounded by the advan¬ 
tages of solitude, might influence your destiny to far greater 
advantage than you influence it for yourself. But it is use¬ 
less to discuss the question. I am, as you say, at a disadvan- 

* All administrative order under the privy seal. Read Cambridge Mod 
ern History,V ol. VIII. p- 50. 


THE GORGCN’s HEAD 


195 


tage. These little instruments of correction, these gentle 
aids to the power and honour of families, these slight favours 
that might so incommode you, are only to be obtained now 
by interest and importunity. They are sought by so many 
and they are granted (comparatively) to so few! It used 
not to be so, but France in all such things is changed for the 
worse. Our not remote ancestors held the right of life and 
death over the surrounding vulgar. From this room, many 
such dogs have been taken out to be hanged; in the next 
room (my bedroom), one fellow, to our knowledge, was poni¬ 
arded on the spot for professing some insolent delicacy re¬ 
specting his daughter —his daughter? We have lost many 
privileges; a new philosophy has become the mode; and the 
assertion of our station, in these days, might (1 do not go so 
far as to say would, but might) cause us real inconvenience. 
All very bad, very bad!” 

The Marquis took a gentle little pinch of snuff, and shook 
his head; as elegantly despondent as he could becomingly 
be of a country still containing himself, that great means o e 
regeneration. 

“We have so asserted our station, both in the old time and 
in the modern time also,” said the nephew, gloomily, “that 
I believe our name to be more detested than any name in 
France.” 

“Let us hope so,” said the uncle. “Detestation of th< 
high is the involuntary homage of the low.” 

“There is not,” pursued the nephew, in his former tone, 
“a face I can look at, in all this country round about us, which 
looks at me with any deference on it but the dark deference 
of fear and slavery.” 

“A compliment,” said the Marquis, “to the grandeur oi 
the family, merited by the manner in which the family has 
6ustained its grandeur. Hah!” And he took another gentle 
little pinch of snuff, and lightlv crossed his legs 





196 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


But, when his nephew, leaning an elbow on the table, cov¬ 
erlid his eyes thoughtfully and dejectedly with his hand, the 
fine mask looked at him sideways with a stronger concen¬ 
tration of keenness, closeness, and dislike, than was comport- 
able with its wearer’s assumption of indifference. 

“Repression is the only lasting philosophy. The dark def¬ 
erence of fear and slavery, my friend,” observed theMarquis, 
“will keep the dogs obedient to the whip, as long as this roof, 
looking up to it, “shuts out the sky.” 

That might not be so long as the Marquis supposed. II 
a picture of the chateau as it was to be a very few years hence, 
and of fifty like it as they too were to be a very few years 
hence, could have been shown to him that night, he might 
have been at a loss to claim his own from the ghastly, fire- 
charred, plunder-wrecked ruins. As for the roof he vaunted, 
he might have found that shutting out the sky in a new 
way—to wit, for ever, from the eyes of the bodies into which 
its lead was fired, out of the barrels of a hundred thousand. 
muskets. 

“Meanwhile,” said theMarquis, “I will preserve the honour 
and repose of the family, if you will not. But you must be 
fatigued. Shall we terminate our conference for the night?’ 

“A moment more.” 

“An hour, if you please.” 

“Sir,” said the nephew, “we have done wrong, and are 
reaping the fruits of wrong.” 

“We have done wrong?” repeated the Marquis, with an 
inquiring smile, and delicately pointing, first to his nephew, 
then to himself. 

“Our family; our honorable family, whose honour is of 
so much account to both of us, in such different ways. Even 
tn my father’s time, we did a world of wrong, injuring every 


THE GORGON’S HEAD 


197 


human creature who came between us and our pleasure,what¬ 
ever it was. Why need I speak of my father’s time, when 
it is equally yours? Can I separate my father s twin-brother* 
joint inheritor, and next successor, from himself?” 

“Death has done that!” said the Marquis. 

“And has left me,” answered the nephew, “bound to a 
system that is frightful to me, responsible for it, but power¬ 
less in it; seeking to execute the last request of my dear moth¬ 
er’s lips, and obey the last look of my dear mother’s eyes, 
which implored me to have mercy and to redress; and tor¬ 
tured by seeking assistance and power in vain.” 

“Seeking them from me, my nephew,” said the Marquis, 
touching him on the breast with his forefinger—they were 
now standing by the hearth—“you will for ever seek them 
in vain, be assured.” 

Every fine straight line in the clear whiteness of his face, 
was cruelly, craftily, and closely compressed, while he stood 
looking quietly at his nephew, with his snuff-box in his hand. 
Once again he touched him on the breast, as though his finger 
were the fine point of a stnall sword, with which, in delicate 
finesse, he ran him through the body, and said: 

“My friend, I will die, perpetuating the system under which 

I have lived.” 

When he had said it, he took a culminating pinch of snuff, 
and put his box in his pocket. 

“Better to be a rational creature,” he added then, after 
ringing a small bell on the table, “and accept your natural 
destiny. But you are lost, Monsieur Charles, I see.” 

“This property and France are lost to me,” said the nephew, 
sadly; “I renounce them.” 

“Are they both yours to renounce? France may be, buC 
is the property? It is scarcely worth mentioning; but, is it 
yet?” 



198 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“I had no intention, in the words I used, to claim it yet 
If it passed to me from you, to-morrow-” 

“•Which I have the vanity to hope is not probable/’ 

“—or twenty years hence-” 

“You do me too much honour,” said the Marquis; “still, 
I prefer that supposition.” 

“—I would 'abandon it, and live otherwise and elsewhere. 
It is little to relinquish. What is it but a wilderness of miser} 
and ruin?” 

“Hah I” said the Marquis, glancing round the luxurious 
room. 

“To the eye it is fair enough, here; but seen in its integrity, 
under the sky and by the daylight, it is a crumbling tower 
of waste, mismanagement, extortion, debt, mortgage, op¬ 
pression, hunger, nakedness, and suffering.” 

“Hah!” said the Marquis again, in a well-satisfied manner. 

“If it ever becomes mine, it shall be put into some hands 
better qualified to free it slowly (if such a thing is possible) 
from the weight that drags it down, so that the miserable 
people who cannot leave it and who have been long wrung 
to the last point of endurance, may, in another generation, 
suffer less; but it is not for me. There is a curse on it, and 
on all this land.” 

“And you?” said the uncle. “Forgive my curiosity; do 
you, under your new philosophy, graciously intend to live?” 

“I must do, to live, what others of my countrymen, even 
with nobility at their backs, may have to do some day—work.” 

“In England, for example?” 

“Yes. The family honour, sir, is safe from me in this coun¬ 
try. The family name can suffer from me in no other, foi 
I bear it in no other.” 

The ringing of the bell had caused the adjoining bed¬ 
chamber to be lighted. It now shone brightly, through the 



XHE GOitGON S xIEajl) 


199 


door of communication. The Marquis looked that way, and 
listened for the retreating step of his valet. 

“England is very attractive to you, seeing how indiffer¬ 
ently you have prospered there,” he observed then, turning 
his calm face to his nephew with a smile. 

“I have already said, that for my prospering there, I am 
sensible I may be indebted to you, sir. For the rest, it is 
my Refuge.” 

“They say, those boastful English, that it is the Refuge 
of many. You know a compatriot who has found a Refuge 
there? A Doctor?” 

“Yes.” 

“With a daughter?” 

“Yes.” 

“Yes,” said thcMarquis. “You are fatigued. Goodnight!” 

As he bent his head in his most courtly manner, there was 
a secrecy in his smiling face, and he conveyed an air of mys¬ 
tery to those words, which struck the eyes and ears of his 
nephew forcibly. At the same time, the thin straight lines 
of the setting of the eyes, and the thin straight lips, and the 
markings in the nose, curved with a sarcasm that looked 
handsomely diabolic. 

“Yes,” repeated theMarquis. “A Doctor with a daughter. 
Yes. So commences the new philosophy! \ ou are fatigued. 
Good night!” 

It would have been of as much avail to interrogate any 
stone face outside the chateau as to interrogate that face of 
his. The nephew looked at him in vain, in passing on to 
the door. 

“Good night!” said the uncle. “I look to the pleasure of 
seeing you again in the morning. Good repose! Light Mon¬ 
sieur my nephew to his chamber there! And burn Monsieur 
my nephew in his bed, if you will, he added to himself, be- 





200 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


fore he rang his little bell again, and summoned his valet to 
his own bedroom. 

The valet come and gone, Monsieur the Marquis walked 
to and fro in his loose chamber-robe, to prepare himself 
gently for sleep, that hot still night. Rustling about the 
room, his softly-slippered feet making no noise on the floor, 
he moved like a refined tiger:—looked like some enchanted 
marquis of the impenitently wicked sort, in story, whose 
periodical change into tiger form was either just going off, 
<or just coming on. 

He moved from end to end of his voluptuous bedroom, 
looking again at the scraps of the day’s journey that came 
unbidden into his mind; the slow T toil up the hill at sunset, 
the setting sun, the descent, the mill, the prison on Rie crag, 
the little village in the hollow, the peasants at the fountain, 
and the mender of roads with his blue cap pointing out the 
chain under the carriage. That fountain suggested the Paris 
fountain, the little bundle lying on the step, the women bend¬ 
ing over it, and the tall man with his arms up, crying, “Dead I” 

“I am cool now,” said Monsieur the Marquis, “and may 
go to bed.” 

So, leaving only one light burning on the large hearth, he 
let his thin gauze curtains fall around him, and heard the 
night break its silence with a long sigh as he composed him¬ 
self to sleep. 

The stone faces on the outer walls stared blindly at the 
black night for three heavy hours; for three heavy hours, the 
horses in the stables rattled at their racks, the dogs barked, 
and the owl made a noise with very little resemblance in it 
to the noise conventionally assigned to the owl by men-poets. 
But it is the obstinate custom of such creatures hardly 
ever to say what is set down for them. 

For three heavy hours, the stone faces of the chateau, lion 


THE GORGON’S HEAD 


201 


and human, stared blindly at the night. Dead darkness lay 
on all the landscape, dead darkness added its own hush to 
the hushing dust on all the roads. The burial-place had got 
to the pass that its little heaps of poor grass were undistin- 
guishable from one another; the figure on the Cross might 
have come down, for anything that could be seen of it. In 
the village, taxers and taxed were fast asleep. Dreaming, 
perhaps, of banquets, as the starved usually do, and of ease 
and rest, as the driven slave and the yoked ox may, its lean 
inhabitants slept soundly, and were fed and freed. 

The fountain in the village flowed unseen and unheard, 
and the fountain at the chateau dropped unseen and unheard 
—both melting away, like the minutes that were falling from 
the spring of Time—through three dark hours. Then, the 
grey water of both began to be ghostly in the light, and the 
eyes of the stone faces of the chateau were opened. 

* Lighter and lighter, until at last the sun touched the tops 
of the still trees, and poured its radiance over the hill. In 
the glow, the water of the chateau fountain seemed to turn 
to blood, and the stone faces crimsoned. The carol of the 
birds was loud and high, and, on the weather-beaten sill of 
the great window of the bedchamber of Monsieur theMarquis, 
one little bird sang its sweetest song with all its might. At 
this, the nearest stone face seemed to stare amazed, and, with 
open mouth and dropped under-jaw, looked awe-stricken. 

Now, the sun was full up, and movement began in the vil¬ 
lage. Casement windows opened, crazy doors were unbarred, 
and people came forth shivering chilled, as yet, by the new 
sweet air. Then began the rarely lightened toil of the day 
among the village population. Some, to the fountain;some, 
to the fields; men and women here, to dig and delve; men and 
women there, to see to the poor live stock, and lead the bony 
cows out, to such pasture as could be found by the roadside. 


202 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


In the church and at the Cross, a kneeling figure or two; at¬ 
tendant on the latter prayers, the led cow, trying for a break¬ 
fast among the weeds at its foot. 

The chateau awoke later, as became its quality, but awoke 
gradually and surely. First, the lonely boar-spears and 
knives of the chase had been reddened as of old; then, had 
gleamed trenchant in the morning sunshine; ijow, doors and 
windows were thrown open, horses in their stables looked 
round over their shoulders at the light and freshness pouring 
in at doorways, leaves sparkled and rustled at iron-grated 
windows, dogs pulled hard at their chains, and reared im¬ 
patient to be loosed. 

All these trivial incidents belonged to the routine of life, 
and the return of morning. Surely, not so the ringing of the 
great bell of the chateau, nor the running up and down the 
stairs; nor the hurried figures on the terrace; nor the booting 
and tramping here and there and everywhere, nor the quick 
saddling of horses and riding away? 

What winds conveyed this hurry to the grizzled mender of 
roads, already at work on the hill-top beyond the village, 
with his day’s dinner (not much to carry) lying in a bundle 
that it was worth no crow’s while to peck at, on a heap of 
stones? Had the birds, carrying some grains of it to a dis¬ 
tance, dropped one over him as they sow chance seeds? 
Whether or no, the mender of roads ran, on the sultry morn¬ 
ing, as if for his life, down the hill, knee-high in dust, and 
never stopped till he got to the fountain. 

All the people of the village were at the fountain, standing 
about in their depressed manner, and whispering low, but 
showing no other emotions than grim curiosity and surprise. 
The led cows, hastily brought in and tethered to anything 
that would hold them, were looking stupidly on, or lying 
down chewing the cud of nothing particularly repaying thei/ 


THE GORGON’S HEAD 


203 


trouble,which they had picked up in their interrupted saunter. 
Some of the people of the chateau, and some of those of the 
posting-house, and all the taxing authorities, were armed 
more or less, and were crowded on the other side of the little 
street in a purposeless way, that was highly fraught with 
nothing. Already, the mender of roads had penetrated into 
the midst of a group of fifty particular friends, and was smit¬ 
ing himself in the breast with his blue cap. What did all 
this portend, and what portended the swift hoisting-up of 
Monsieur Gabelle behind a servant on horseback, and the 
conveying away of the said Gabelle (double-laden though the 
horse w T as), at a gallop, like a new version of the German bal¬ 
lad of Leonora? 1 

It portended that there was one stone face too many, up 
at the chateau. 

The Gorgon had surveyed the building again in the night, 
and had added the one stone face wanting; the stone face 
for which it had waited through about two hundred years. 

It lay back on the pillow of Monsieur the Marquis. It was 
like a fine mask, suddenly startled, made angry, and petrified. 
Driven home into the heart of the stone figure attached to it, 
was a knife. Round its hilt was a frill of paper, on which 
was scrawled: 

“Drive him fast to his tomb. This, from Jacques.” 

1 A popular modern ballad by Gottfried August Burger (born 1748, died 
1794). Read Sir Walter Scott’s “William and Helen," which is an avowed 
imitation of it. 


CHAPTER X. 

TWO PROMISES 

More months, to the number of twelve, had come and gone, 
and Mr. Charles Damay was established in England as a 
higher teacher of the French language who was conversant 
with French literature. In this age, he would have been a 
Professor; in that age, he was a Tutor. He read with young 
men who could find any leisure and interest for the study of 
a living tongue spoken all over the world, and he cultivated 
a taste for its stores of knowledge and fancy. He could 
write of them, besides, in sound English, and rendei 
them into sound English. Such masters were not at that 
time easily found; Princes that had been, and Kings that were 
to be, were not yet of the Teacher class, and no ruined no¬ 
bility had dropped out of Tellson’s ledgers, to turn cooks and 
carpenters. As a tutor, whose attainments made the stu¬ 
dent’s way unusually pleasant and profitable, and as an ele¬ 
gant translator who brought something to his work besides 
mere dictionary knowledge, young Mr. Darnay soon became 
known and encouraged. He was well acquainted, moreover, 
with the circumstances of his country, and those were of 
ever-growing interest. So, with great perseverance and un¬ 
tiring industry, he prospered. 

In London, he had expected neither to walk on pavements 
of gold, nor to lie on beds of roses; if he had had any such 
exalted expectation, he would not have prospered. He had 
expected labour, and he found it, and did it, and made the 
best of it. In this, his prosperity consisted. 

A certain portion of his time was passed at Cambridge. 

204 


TWO PROMISES 


205 


where lie read with undergraduates as a sort of tolerated 
smuggler who drove a contraband trade in European lan¬ 
guages, instead of conveying GreeK and Latin through the 
Custom-house. The rest of his time he passed in London. 

Now, from the days when it was always summer in Eden, 
to these days when it is mostly winter in fallen latitudes, 
the world of a man has invariably gone one way—Charles 
Darnay’s way—the way of the love of a woman. 

He had loved Lucie Manette from the hour of his danger. 
He had never heard a sound so sweet and dear as the sound 
of her compassionate voice; he had never seen a face so ten¬ 
derly beautiful, as hers when it was confronted with his own 
on the edge of the grave that had been dug for him. But, 
he had not yet spoken to her on the subject; the assassina¬ 
tion at the deserted chateau far away beyond the heaving 
water and the long, long, dusty roads—the solid stone chateau 
which had itself become the mere mist of a dream—had been 
done a year, and he had never yet, by so much as a single 
spoken word, disclosed to her the state of his heart. 

That he had his reasons for this, he knew full well. It was 
again a summer day when, lately arrived in London from 
his college occupation, he turned into the quiet corner in 
Soho, bent on seeking an opportunity of opening his mind 
to DoctorManette. It was the close of the summer day, and 
he knew Lucie to be out with Miss Pross. 

He found the Doctor reading in his arm-chair at a window. 
The energy which had at once supported him under his old 
sufferings and aggravated their sharpness, had been gradually^ 
restored to him. He was now a very energetic man indeed, 
with great firmness of purpose, strength of resolution, and 
vigour of action. In his recovered energy he was sometimes 
a little fitful and sudden, as he had at first been in the ex¬ 
ercise of his other recovered faculties; but, this had never 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


2Vb 

been frequently observable, and had grown more and more 
rare. 

He studied much, slept little, sustained a great deal of fa¬ 
tigue with ease, and was equably cheerful. 1 o him, now 
entered Charles Darnay, at sight of whom he laid aside his 
book and held out his hand. 

“Charles Darnay! I rejoice to see you. We have been 
coor-nug on your return these three or four days past. Mr. 
Stiver and Sydney Carton were both here yesterday, and 
both made you out to be more than due.” 

“I am obliged to them for their interest in the matter,” he 
answered, a little coldly as to them, though very warmly as 
to the Doctor. “MissManette-” 

“Is well,” said the Doctor, as he stopped short, “and your 
return will delight us all. She has gone out on some house¬ 
hold matters, but will soon be home.” 

“Doctor Manette, I knew she was from home. I took the 
opportunity of her being from home, to beg to speak to you. ” 

There was a blank silence. 

“Yes?” said the Doctor, with evident constraint. “Bring 
your chair here, and speak on.” 

He complied as to the chair, but appeared to find the speak¬ 
ing on less easy. 

“I have had the happiness, Doctor Manette,, of being so 
intimate here,” so he at length began, “for some year and a 
half, that I hope the topic on which I am about to touch may 
not--” 

He was stayed by the Doctor's putting out his hand to 
stop him. When he had kept it so a little while, he said, 
drawing it back: 

“Is Lucie the topic?” 


TWO PROMISES 


20 1 


hard for me to hear her spoken of in that tone of yours, 
Charles Darnay.” 

“It is a tone of fervent admiration, true homage, and deep 
love, Doctor Manette!” he said deferentially. 

There was another blank silence before her father rejoined: 

“I believe it. I do you justice; I believe it.” 

Ilis constraint was so manifest, and it was so manifest, too, 
that it originated in an unwillingness to approach the sub¬ 
ject, that Charles Darnay hesitated. 

“Shall I go on, sir?” 

Another blank. 

“Yes, go on.” 

“You anticipate what I would say, though you cannot 
know how earnestly I say it, how earnestly I feel it, without 
knowing my secret heart, and the hopes and fears and anxi¬ 
eties with which it has long been laden. Dear Doctor Man¬ 
ette, I love your daughter fondly, dearly, disinterestedly, 
devotedly. If ever there were love in the world, I love her. 
You have loved yourself; let your old love speak for me!” 

The Doctor sat with his face turned away, and his eye, 
bent on the ground. At the last words, he stretched out 
his hand again, hurriedly, and cried: 

“Not that, sir! Let that be! I adjure you, do not re¬ 
call that!” 

His cry was so like a cry of actual pain, that it rang in 
Charles Darnay’s ears long after he had ceased. He motion¬ 
ed with the hand he had extended, and it seemed to be an 
appeal to Darnay to pause. The latter so received it, and 
remained silent. 

“I ask your pardon,” said the Doctor, in a subdued tones 
after some moments. “I do not doubt your loving Lucie; 
you may be satisfied of it. 

He turned towards him in his chair, but did not look at 


208 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


him, or raise his eyes. His chin dropped upon his hand, and 
his white hair overshadowed his face: 

“Have you spoken to Lucie?” 

“No.” 

“Nor written?” 

“Never.” 

“It would be ungenerous to affect not to know that yom 
self-denial is to be referred to your consideration for her 
father. Her father thanks you.” 

He offered his hand; but his eyes did not go with it. 

“I know,” said Darnay, respectfully, “how can I fail to 
know, Doctor Manette, I who have seen you together from 
day to day, that between you and Miss Manette there is an 
affection so unusual, so touching, so belonging to the circum¬ 
stances in which it has been nurtured, that it can have few 
parallels, even in the tenderness between a father and child. 
I know, Doctor Manette—how can I fail to know—that, min¬ 
gled with the affection and duty of a daughter who has be¬ 
come a woman, there is, in her heart, towards you, all the 
love and reliance of infancy itself. I know that, as in her 
childhood she had no parent, so she is now devoted to 
you with all the constancy and fervour of her present years 
and character, united to the trustfulness and attachment of 
the early days in which you were lost to her. I know per¬ 
fectly well that if you had been restored to her from the 
world beyond this life, you could hardly be invested, in her 
sight, with a more sacred character than that in which you 
are always with her. I know that when she is clinging to 
you, the hands of baby, girl, and woman, all in one, are 
round your neck. I know that in loving you she sees and 
loves her mother at her own age, sees and loves you at my 
age, loves her mother broken-hearted, loves you through 
your dreadful trial and in your blessed restoration. I have 


TWO PROMISES 


209 


known this, night and day, since I have known you in your 
home.*' 

Her father sat silent, with his face bent down. His breath¬ 
ing was a little quickened; but he repressed all other sign? 
of agitation. 

‘‘Dear DoctorManette, always knowing this, always seeing 
her and you with this hallowed light about you, I have for¬ 
borne, and forborne, as long as it was in the nature of man 
to do it. I have felt, and do even now feel, that to bring 
my love—even mine—between you, is tc touch your history 
with something not quite so good as itself. But I love her. 
Heaven is my witness that I love her!” 

“I believe it,” answered her father, mournfully. “I have 
thought so before now. I believe it.” 

“But, do not believe,” said Darnay, upon whose ear the 
mournful voice struck w T ith a reproachful sound, “that if 
my fortune were so cast as that, being one day so happy as 
to make her my wife, I must at any time put any separation 
between her and you, I could or would breathe a word ol 
what I now say. Besides that I should know it to be hope¬ 
less, I should know it to be a baseness. If I had any such 
possibility, even at a remote distance of years, harboured 
in my thoughts, and hidden in my heart—if it ever had been 
*here—if it ever could be there—I could r*°t now touch this 
honoured hand.” 

He laid his own upon it as he spoke. 

“No, dear Doctor Manette. Like you, a voluntary exile 
from France; like you, driven from it by its distractions, op¬ 
pressions, and miseries; like you, striving to live away from 
U by my own exertions, and trusting in a happier future; 
1 look only to sharing your fortunes, sharing your life and 
home, and being faithful to you to the death. Not to divide 
with Lucie her privilege as your child, companion, and friend; 


210 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


but to come in aid of it, and bind her closer to you, if such 
a thing can be.” 

His touch still lingered on her father’s hand. Answering 
the touch for a moment, but not coldly, her father rested 
his hands upon the arms of his chair, and looked up for the 
first time since the beginning of the conference. A struggle 
was evidently in his face; a struggle with that occasional 
look which had a tendency in it to dark doubt and dread. 

“You speak so feelingly and so manfully, Charles Darnay, 
that I thank you with all my heart, and will open all my 
heart—or nearly so. Have you any reason to believe that 
Lucie loves you?” 

“None. As yet, none.” 

“Is it the immediate object of this confidence, that you 
may at once ascertain that, with my knowledge?” 

“Not even so. I might not have the hopefulness to do 
it for weeks; I might (mistaken or not mistaken) have that 
hopefulness to-morrow.” 

“Do you seek any guidance from me?” 

“I ask none, sir. But I have thought it possible that you 
might have it in your power, if you should deem it right, to 
give me some.” 

“Do you seek any promise from me?” 

“1 do seek that.” 

“What is it?” 

“I well understand that, without you, I could have no 
hope. I well understand that, even if Miss Manette held 
me at this moment in her innocent heart—do not think 1 
have the presumption to assume so much—I could retain 
no place in it against her love for her father.” 

“If that be so, do you see what on the other hand, is in¬ 
volved in it?” 

“I understand equally well, that a word from her father 



TWO PROMISES 


211 

in any suitor s favour, would outweigh herself and all the 
world. For which reason, Doctor Manette,” said Darnay, 
modestly but firmly, “I would not ask that word to save my 
life.” 

“I am sure of it. Charles Darnay, mysteries arise out of 
close love, as well as out of wide division; in the former case, 
they are subtle and delicate, and difficult to penetrate. My 
daughter Lucie is, in this one respect, such a mystery to me; 
I can make no guess at the state of her heart.” 

“May I ask, sir, if you think she is-” As he hesitated, 

her father supplied the rest. 

“Is sought by any other suitor?” 

“It is what I meant to say.” 

Her father considered a little before he answered: 

“You have seen Mr. Carton here, yourself. Mr. Stryver is 
here too, occasionally. If it be at all, it can only be by one of 
these.” 

“Or both,” said Darnay. 

“I had not thought of both; 1 should not think either, 
likely. You ^ant a promise from me. Tell me what it is.” 

“It is, that if MissManette should bring to you at any time, 
on her part, such a confidence as I have ventured to lay before 
you, you will bear testimony to what I have said, and to your 
belief in it. I hope you may be able to think so well of me, 
as to urge no influence against me. I say nothing more of my 
stake in this; this is what I ask. The condition on which I 
ask it, and which you have an undoubted right to require, I 
will observe immediately.” 

“I give the promise,” said the Doctor, “without any con¬ 
dition. I believe your object to be, purely and truthfully, 
as you have stated it. I believe your intention is to perpetu¬ 
ate, and not to weaken, the ties between me and my otl t 
and far dearer self. If she should ever tell me that you are 


212 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


essential to her perfect happiness, I will give her to you. If 
there were—Charles Darnay, if there were—” 

The young man had taken his hand gratefully ; their hands 
were joined as the Doctor spoke: 

“—any fancies, any reasons, any apprehensions, anything 
whatsoever, new or old, against the man she really loved—* 
the direct responsibility thereof not lying on his head—they 
should all be obliterated for her sake. She is everything to 
me; more to me than suffering, more to me than wrong, more 
tome-Well! This is idle talk.” 

So strange was the way in which he faded into silence, and 
so strange his fixed look when he had ceased to speak, that 
Darnay felt his own hand turn cold in the hand that slowly 
released and dropped it. 

“You said something to me,” said Doctor Manette, break¬ 
ing into a smile. “What was it you said to me?” 

He was at a loss how to answer, until he remembered having 
spoken of a condition. Relieved as his mind reverted to that 
he answered: 

“Your confidence in me ought to be returned with full con¬ 
fidence on my part. My present name, though but slightly 
changed from my mother’s, is not, as you will remember, my 
own. I wish to tell you what that is, and why I am in Eng¬ 
land.” 

“Stop!” said the Doctor of Beauvais. 

“I wish it, that I may the better deserve your confidence, 
and have no secret from you.” 

“Stop!” 

For an instant the Doctor even had his two hands at his 
ears; for another instant, even had his two hands laid on 
D may’s lips. 

“Tell me when I ask you, not now. If your suit should 


TWO PROMISES 


213 


piosper, if Lucie should love you, you shall tell me on your 
marriage morning. Do you promise?” 

“Willingly.” 

“Give me your hand. She will be home directly, and it is 
better she should not see us together to-night. Go! God 
bless you!” 

It was dark when Charles Darnay left him, and it was an 
hour later and darker when Lucie came home; she hurried 
into the room alone—for Miss Pross had gone straight up¬ 
stairs—and was surprised to find his reading-chair empty. 

“My father!” she called to him. “Father dear!” 

Nothing was said in answer, but she heard a low hammering 
sound in his bedroom. Passing lightly across the intermedi¬ 
ate room, she looked in at his door and came running back 
irightened, crying to herself, with her blood all chilled. 
“What shall I do! What shall I do!” 

Her uncertainty lasted but a moment; she hurried back, 
and tapped at his door, and softly called to him. The noise 
ceased at the sound of her voice, and he presently came out to 
her, and they walked up and down together for a long time. 

She came down from her bed, to look at him in his sleep 
that night. He slept heavily, and his tray of shoemaking 
tools, and his old unfinished work, were all as usual. 


CHAPTER XL 

a' companion picture 

‘‘Sydney/’ said Mr. Stryver, on that self-same night, or 
morning, to his jackal; “mix another bowl of punch; I have 
something to say to you.” 

Sydney had been working double tides that night, and the 
night before, and the night before that, and a good many 
nights in succession, making a grand clearance among Mr. 
Stryver’s papers before the setting in of the long vacation. 
The clearance was effected at last; the Stryver arrears were 
handsomely fetched up; everything was got rid of until No¬ 
vember should come with its fogs atmospheric and fogs legal, 
and bring grist to the mill again. 

Sydney was none the livelier and none the soberer for so 
much application. It had taken a deal of extra wet-towel¬ 
ling to pull him through the night; a correspondingly extra 
quantity of wine had preceded the towelling; and he was in 
a very damaged condition, as he now pulled his turban off and 
threw it into the basin in which he had steeped it at intervals 
for the last six hours. 

“Are you mixing that other bowl of punch?” said Stryver 
the portly, with his hands in his waistband, glancing round 
from the sofa where he lay on his back. 

6(T n 

1 am. 

“Now, look here! I am going to tell you something that 
will rather surprise you, and that perhaps will make you think 
me not quite as shrewd as you usually do think me. I intend 
to marry.” 

“Do you?” 


214 



TWO PROMISES 


215 


'‘Yes. And not for money. What do you say now?” 

“I don’t feel disposed to say much. Who is she?” 

“Guess.” 

“Do I know her?” 

“Guess.” 

“I am not going to guess, at five o’clock in the morning, 
with my brains frying and sputtering in my head. If you 
want me to guess, you must ask me to dinner.” 

“Well then, 111 tell you,” said, Stryver coming slowly 
into a sitting posture. “Sydney, I rather despair of making 
myself intelligible to you, because you are such an insensible 
dog.” 

“And you,” returned Sydney, busy concocting the punch, 
“are such a sensitive and poetical spirit.” 

“Come!” rejoined Stryver, laughing boastfully, “though 
I don’t prefer any claim to being the soul of Romance (for I 
hope I know better), still I am a tenderer sort of fellow than 
you.” 

“You are a luckier, if you mean that.” 

“I don’t mean that. 1 mean I am a man of more- 

jj 

more- 

“Say gallantry, while you are about it,” suggested Carton. 

“Well! I’ll say gallantry. My meaning is that I am a 
man,” said Stryver, inflating himself at his friend as he made 
the punch, “who cares more to be agreeable, who takes more 
pains to be agreeable, who knows better how to be agreeable, 
in a woman’s society, than you do.” 

“Go on,” said Sydney Carton. 

“No; but before I go on,” said Stryver, shaking his head 
in his bullying way, “I’ll have this out with you. You’ve 
been at Dr. Manette’s house as much as I have, or more 
than I have. Why, I have been ashamed of your moroseness 
there! Your manners have been of that silent and sullen 



216 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


and hang-CK/g Kind, that, upon my life and soul, I have been 
ashamed of you, Sydney!” 

“It should be very beneficial to a man in your practice at 
the bar, to be ashamed of anything,” returned Sydney; “you 
ought to be much obliged to me.” 

“You shall not get off in that way,” rejoined Stryver, 
shouldering the rejoinder at him; “no, Sydney, it’s my duty 
to tell you—and I tell you to your face to do you good— 
that you are a de-vilish ill-conditioned fellow in that sort of 
society. You are a disagreeable fellow.” 

Sydney drank a bumper of the punch he had made, and 
laughed. 

“Look at me!” said Stryver, squaring himself; “I have 
less need to make myself agreeable than you have, being 
more independent in circumstances. Why do I do it?” 

“I never saw you do it yet,” muttered Carton. 

“I do it because it’s politic; I do it on principle. And 
look at me! I get on.” 

“You don’t get on with your account of your matrimonial 
intentions,” answered Carton, with a careless air; “I wish 
you would keep to that. As to me—will you never under¬ 
stand that I am incorrigible?” 

He asked the question with some appearance of scorn. 

“You have no business to be incorrigible,” was his friend’s 
answer, delivered in no very soothing tone. 

“I have no business to be, at all, that I know of,” said 
Sydney Carton. “Who is the lady?” 

“Now, don’t let my announcement of the name make you 
uncomfortable, Sydney,” said Mr. Stryver, preparing him 
with ostentatious friendliness for the disclosure he was about 
to make, “because I know you don’t mean half you say; 
and if you meant it all, it would be of no importance. I 


TWO PROMISES 


217 


make this little preface, because you once mentioned the 
young lady to me in slighting terms.” 

“I did?” 

“Certainly; and in these chambers.” 

Sydney Carton looked at his punch and looked at his com¬ 
placent friend; drank his punch and looked at his complacent 
friend. 

“You made mention of the young lady as a golden-haired 
doll. The young lady is Miss Manette. If you had been a 
fellow of any sensitiveness or delicacy of feeling in that kind 
of way, Sydney, I might have been a little resentful of your 
employing such a designation; but you are not. You want 
that sense altogether; therefore I am no more annoyed when 
I think of the expression, than I should be annoyed by a 
man’s opinion of a picture of mine, who had no eye for 
pictures: or of a piece of music of mine, who had no ear for 
music.” ’ 

Sydney Carton drank the punch at a great rate; drank it 
by bumpers, looking at his friend. 

“Now you know all about it, Syd,” said Mr. Stryver. “I 
don’t care about fortune: she is a charming creature, and 
I have made up my mind to please myself: on the whole, I 
think I can afford to please myself. She will have in me a 
man already pretty well off, and a rapidly rising man, and a 
man of some distinction: it is a piece of good fortune for 
her, but she is worthy of good fortune. Are you astonished?” 

Carton, still drinking the punch, rejoined, “Why should 
I be astonished?” 

“You approve?” 

Carton, still drinking the punch, rejoined, “Why should 
I not approve?” 

“Well!” said his friend Stryver. “you take it more easily 
than I fancied you would, and are less mercenary on my 


218 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


behalf than I thought you would be; though, to be sure, 
you know well enough by this time that your ancient chum 
is a man of a pretty strong will. Yes, Sydney, I have had 
enough of this style of life, with no other as a change from 
it; I feel that it is a pleasant thing for a man to have a 
home when he feels inclined to go to it (when he doesn’t, 
he can stay away), and I feel that Miss Manette will tell 
well in any station, and will always do me credit. So I have 
made up my mind. And now, Sydney, old boy, I want to 
say a word to you about your prospects. You are in a bad 
way, you know; you really are in a bad way. You don’t know 
the value of money, you live hard, you’ll knock up • one 
of these days, and be ill and poor; you really ought to think 
about a nurse.” 

The prosperous patronage with which he said it, made him 
look twice as big as he was, and four times as offensive. 

“Now, let me recommend you,” pursued Stryver, “to look 
it in the face. I have looked it in the face, in my different 
way; look it in the face, you, in your different way. Marry. 
Provide somebody to take care of you. Never mind your 
having no enjoyment of women’s society, nor understand¬ 
ing of it, nor tact for it. Find out somebody. Find out 
some respectable woman with a little property—somebody in 
the landlady way, or lodging-letting way—and marry her, 
against a rainy day. That’s the kind of thing for you. Now 
think of it, Sydney.” 

“I’ll think of it,” said Sydney, 


CHAPTER XII. 

THE FELLOW OF DELICACY 

Mr. Stryver having made up his mind to that magnani¬ 
mous bestowal of good fortune on the Doctor’s daughter, re¬ 
solved to make her happiness known to her before he left town 
for the Long Vacation. After some mental debating of the 
point, he came to the conclusion that it would be as well to 
get all the preliminaries done with, and they could then 
arrange at their leisure whether he should give her his hand 
a week or two before Michaelmas Term, or in the little 
Christmas vacation between it and Hilary. 

As to the strength of his case, he had not a doubt about 
it, but clearly saw his way to the verdict. Argued with the 
jury on substantial worldly grounds—the only grounds ever 
worth taking into account—it was a plain case, and had not a 
weak spot in it. He called himself for the plaintiff, there 
was no getting over his evidence, the counsel for the de¬ 
fendant threw up his brief, and the jury did not even turn 
to consider. After trying it, Stryver, C. J., was satisfied 
that no plainer case couid be. 

Accordingly, Mr. Stryver inaugurated the Long Vacation 
with a formal proposal to take Miss Manette to Vauxhall 
Gardens; that failing, to Ranelagh; 1 that unaccountably 
failing too, it behooved him to present himself in Soho, and 
there declare his noble mind. 

Towards Soho, therefore, Mr. Stryver shouldered his way 
from the Temple, while the bloom of the Long Vacation’s 

» Read Addison, Spectator , No. 383; Hare, Walks in London, II, 422; 
Knight, London, I, Chap, xxiii. Read also Thackeray, Vanity Fair,V oL 
I,Chap. vx. 


219 


220 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


infancy was still upon it. Anybody who had seen him pro¬ 
jecting himself into Goho while he was yet on Saint Dunstan s 
side of Temple Bar, bursting in his full-blown way along the 
pavement to the jostlement of all weaker people, might have 
seen how safe and strong he was. 

His way taking him past Tellson’s, and he both banking at 
Telison s and knowing Mi. Lorry as the intimate friend of 
the Manettes, U entered Mr. Stryver’s mind to enter the 
bank, and reveal to Mr. Lorry the brightness of the Soho 
horizon. So he pushed open the door with the weak rattle 
in its throat stumbled down the two steps, got past the two 
ancient cashiers, and shouldered himself into the musty back 
closet where Mr. Lorry sat at great books ruled for figures, 
with perpendicular iron bars to his window as if that were 
ruled for figures too, and everything under the clouds were 
a sum. 

“Halloa!” said Mr. Stryver. “How do you do? I hope 
you are well!” 

It was Stryver’s grand peculiarity that he always seemed 
too big for any place, or space. He was so much too big for 
Tellson’s, that old clerks in distant corners looked up with 
looks of remonstrance, as though he squeezed them against 
the wall. The House itself, magnificently reading the paper 
quite in the far-off perspective, lowered displeased, as if the 
Stryver head had been butted into its responsible waistcoat. 

The discreet Mr. Lorry said, in a sample tone of the voice 
he would recommend under the circumstances, “How do you 
do, Mr. Stryver? How do you do, sir?” and shook hands. 
There was a peculiarity in his manner of shaking hands, 
always to be seen in any clerk at Tellson’s who shook hands 
with a customer when the House pervaded the air. He 
shook in a self-abnegating way, as one who shook for Tellson 
and Co. 


THE FELLOW OF DELICACY 


221 


“Can I do anything for you, Mr. Stryver?” asked Mr. 
Lorry, in his business character. 

“Why, no, thank you; this is a private visit to yourself, 
Mr. Lorry; I have come for a private word.” 

“Oh indeed!” said Mr. Lorry, bending down his ear, while 
his eye strayed to the House afar off. 

“I am going,” said Mr. Stryver, leaning his arms con¬ 
fidentially on the desk: whereupon, although it was a large 
double one, there appeared to be not half desk enough for 
him: “I am going to make an offer of myself in marriage to 
your agreeable little friend, Miss Manette, Mr. Lorry.” 

“Oh dear me!” cried Mr. Lorry, rubbing his chin, and 
looking at his visitor dubiously. 

“Oh dear me, sir?” repeated Stryver, drawing back. 
“Oh dear you, sir? What may your meaning be, Mr. 
Lorry?” 

“My meaning,” answered the man of business, “is, of 
course, friendly and appreciative, and that it does you the 
greatest credit, and—in short, my meaning is everything you 

could desire. But—really, you know, Mr. Stryver-” Mr. 

Lorry paused, and shook his head at him in the oddest 
manner, as if he were compelled against his will to add, 
internally, “you know there really is so much too much of 
you!” 

“Well!” said Stryver, slapping the desk with his con¬ 
tentious hand, opening his eyes wider, and taking a long 
breath, “if I understand you, Mr. Lorry, I’ll be hanged!” 

Mr. Lorry adjusted his little wig at both ears as a means 
towards that end, and bit the feather of a pen. 

“D—n it all, sir!” said Stryver, staring at him, “am ) 
not eligible?” 

“Oh dear yes! Yes. Oh yes, you’re eligible!” said Mr 
Lorry. “If you say eligible, you are eligible.” 


222 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“Am I not prosperous?” asked Stryver. 

“Oh! if you come to prosperous, you are prosperous/’ said 
Mr. Lorry. 

“And advancing?” 

“If you come to advancing, you know,” said Mr. Lorry, 
delighted to be able to make another admission, “nobody 
can doubt that.” 

“Then what on earth is your meaning, Mr. Lorry?” de¬ 
manded Stryver, perceptibly crestfallen. 

“Well! I-Were you going there now?” asked Mr. 

Lorry. 

“Straight!” said Stryver with a plump of his fist on the 
desk. 

“Then I think I wouldn’t, if I was you.” 

“Why?” said Stryver. “Now, I’ll put you in a corner,” 
forensically shaking a forefinger at him. “You are a man 
of business and bound to have a reason. State your reason. 
Why wouldn’t you go?” 

“Because,” said Mr. Lorry, “I wouldn’t go on such an 
object without having some cause to believe that I should 
succeed.” 

“D —n me!” cried Stryver, “but this beats everything.” 

Mr. Lorry glanced at the distant House, and glanced at 
the angry Stryver. 

“Here’s a man of business—a man of years—a man of 
experience —in a Bank,” said Stryver; “and having summed 
up three leading reasons for complete success, he says there’s 
no reason at all! Says it with his head on!” Mr. Stryver 
remarked on the peculiarity as if it would have been in¬ 
finitely less remarkable if he had said it with his head off. 

“W T hen I speak of success, I speak of success with the 
young lady; and when I speak of causes and reasons to make 
success probable, I speak of causes and reasons that will tell 




THE FELLOW OF DELICACY 


223 


as such with the young lady. The young lady, my good 
sir” said Mr. Lorry, mildly tapping the Stryver arm, “the 
young lady. The young lady goes before all. 

“Then you mean to tell me, Mr. Lorry,” said Stryver, 
squaring his elbows, “that it is your deliberate opinion that 
the young lady at present in question is a mincing Fool? 

“Not exactly so. I mean to tell you, Mr. Stryver, said 
Mr. Lorry, reddening, “that I will hear no disrespectful word 
of that young lady from any lips; and that if I knew any 
man—which I hope I do not—whose taste was so coarse, and 
whose temper was so overbearing, that he could not restrain 
himself from speaking disrespectfully of that young lady at 
this desk, not even Tellson’s should prevent my giving him 
a piece of my mind.” 

The necessity of being angry in a suppressed tone had put 
Mr. Stry vers blood-vessels into a dangerous state when it was 
his turn to be angry; Mr. Lorry’s veins, methodical as their 
courses could usually be, were in no better state now it was 
his turn. 

“That is what I mean to tell you, sir,” said Mr. Lorry. 
“Pray let there be no mistake about it.” 

Mr. Stryver sucked the end of a ruler for a little while, 
and then stood hitting a tune out of his teeth with it, which 
probably gave him the toothache. He broke the awkward 
silence by saying: 

“This is something new to me, Mr. Lorry. You de¬ 
liberately advise me not to go up to Soho and offer myself 
m?/self, Stryver of the King s Bench bar? 

“Do you ask me for my advice, Mr. Stryver?” 

“Yes, Ido.” 

“Very good. Then I give it, and you have repeated it 
correctly.” 

“And all that I can say of it is,” laughed Stryver with a 


224 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


vexed laugh, “that this—ha, ha!—beats everything past, 
present, and to come.” 

“Now understand me,” pursued Mr. Lorry. “As a man 
of business, I am not justified in saying anything about this 
matter, for, as a man of business, I know nothing of it. 
But, as an old fellow, who has carried Miss Manette in his 
arms, who is the trusted friend of Miss Manette and of her 
father too, and who has a great affection for them both, I 
have spoken. The confidence is not of my seeking, recollect. 
Now, you think I may not be right?” 

“Not I!” said Stryver, whistling. “I can’t undertake to 
find third parties in common sense; I can only find it for 
myself. I suppose sense in certain quarters; you suppose 
mincing bread-and-butter nonsense. It’s new to me, but 
you are right, I daresay.” 

“What I suppose, Mr. Stryver, I claim to characterise for 
myself. And understand me, sir,” said Mr. Lorry, quickly 
flushing again, “I will not—not even at Tellson’s—have it 
characterised for me by any gentleman breathing.” 

“There! I beg your pardon!” said Stryver. 

“Granted. Thank you. Well, Mr. Stryver, I was about 
to say:—it might be painful to you to find yourself mistaken, 
it might be painful to Doctor Manette to have the task of 
being explicit with you, it might be very painful toMissMan- 
ette to have the task of being explicit with you. You know 
the terms upon which I have the honour and happiness to 
stand with the family. If you please, committing you in no 
way, representing you in no way, I will undertake to correct 
my advice by the exercise of a little new observation and 
judgment expressly brought to bear upon it. If you should 
then be dissatified with it, you can but test its soundness for 
yourself; if, on the other hand, you should be satisfied with it, 



THE FELLOW OF DELICACY 


225 


and it should be what it now is, it may spare all sides what is 
best spared. What do you say?” 

“How long would you keep me in town?” 

“Oh! It is only a question of a few hours. I could go 
to Soho in the evening, and come to your chambers after¬ 
wards.” 

“Then I say yes,” said Stryver: “I won’t go up there now, 
I am not so hot upon it as that comes to; I say yes, and I 
shall expect you to look in to-night. Good morning.” 

Then Mr. Stryver turned and burst out of the Bank, causing 
such a concussion of air on his passage through, that to stand 
up against it bowing behind the two counters, required the 
utmost remaining strength of the two ancient clerks. Those 
venerable and feeble persons were always seen by the public 
in the act of bowing, and were popularly believed, when they 
had bowed a customer out, still to keep on bowing in the 
empty office until they bowed another customer in. 

The barrister was keen enough to divine that the banker 
would not have gone so 'far in his expression of opinion on 
any less solid ground than moral certainty. Unprepared as 
he was for the large pill he had to swallow,-he got it down. 
“And now,” said Mr. Stryver, shaking his forensic forefinger 
at the Temple in general, when it was down, “my way out of 
this, is, to put you all in the wrong.” 

It was a bit of the art of an Old Bailey tactician, in which 
he found great relief. “You shall not put me in the wrong, 
young lady,” said Mr. Stryver; ‘Til. do that for you.” 

Accordingly, when Mr. Lorry called that night as late as 
ten o’clock, Mr. Stryver, among a quantity of books and 
papers littered out for the purpose, seemed to have nothing 
less on his mind than the subject of the morning. He even 
showed surprise when he saw Mr. Lorry, and was altogether 
in an absent and preoccupied state. 


226 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“Well!” said that good-natured emissary, after a full half- 
hour of bootless attempts to bring him round to the question, 
“I have been to Soho.” 

“To Soho?” repeatedMr. Stryver, coldly. “Oh, to be sure! 
What am I thinking of!” 

“And I have no doubt,” said Mr. Lorry, “that I was right 
in the conversation we had. My opinion is confirmed, and 
I reiterate my advice.” 

“I assure you,” returned Mr. Stryver, in the friendliest 
way, “that I am sorry for it on your account, and sorry for 
it on the poor father’s account. I know this must always be 
a sore subject with the family; let us say no more about it.” 

“I don’t understand you,” saidMr. Lorry. 

“I dare say not,” rejoined Stryver, nodding his head in a 
smoothing and final way; “no matter, no matter.” 

"But it does matter,” Mr. Lorry urged. 

“No it doesn’t; I assure you it doesn’t. Having supposed 
that there was sense where there is no sense, and a laudable 
ambition where there is not a laudable ambition, I am well 
out of my mistake, and no harm is done. Young women 
have committed similar follies often before, and have repented 
them in poverty and obscurity often before. In an unselfish 
aspect, I am sorry that the thing is dropped, because it would 
have been a bad thing for me in a worldly point of view; in a 
selfish aspect, I am glad that the thing has dropped, because 
it would have been a bad thing for me in a worldly point of 
view—it is hardly necessary to say I could have gained 
nothing by it. There is no harm at all done. I have not 
proposed to the young lady, and, between ourselves, I am 
by no means certain, on reflection, that I ever should have 
committed myself to that extent. Mr. Lorry, you cannot con¬ 
trol the mincing vanities and giddinesses of empty-headed 
girls; you must not expect to do it, or you will always be dis- 




THE FELLOW OF DELICACY 


227 


appointed. Now, pray say no more about it. I tell you, 
I regret it on account of others, but I am satisfied on my own 
account. And I am really very much obliged to you for 
allowing me to sound you, and for giving me your advice; 
you know T the young lady better than I do; you were right, 
it nev£r would have done.” 

Mr. Lorry was so taken aback, that he looked quite stupidly 
at Mr. Stryver shouldering him towards the door, with an 
appearance of showering generosity, forbearance, and good¬ 
will, on his erring head. “Make the best of it, my dear sir, 
said Stryver; “say no more about it; thank you again for 
allowing me to sound you; good night!” 

Mr. Lorry was out in the night, before he knew where he 
was. Mr. Stryver was lying back on his sofa, winking at his 
ceilings 


CHAPTER XIII. 

THE FELLOW OF NO DELICACY 

If Sydney Carton ever shone anywhere, he certainly never 
shone, in the house of Doctor Manette. He had been there 
often during a whole year, and had always been the same 
moody and morose lounger there. When he cared to talk, 
he talked well; but, the cloud of caring for nothing, which 
overshadowed him with such a fatal darkness, was very rarely 
pierced by the light within him. 

And yet he did care something for the streets that environed 
that house, and for the senseless stones that made their pave¬ 
ments. Many a night he vaguely and unhappily wandered 
there, when wine had brought no transitory gladness to him; 
many a dreary daybreak revealed his solitary figure lingering 
there, and still lingering there when the first beams of the sun 
brought into strong relief, removed beauties of architecture 
in spires of churches and lofty buildings, as perhaps the quiet 
time brought some sense of better things, else forgotten and 
unattainable, into his mind. Of late, the neglected bed in 
the Temple Court had known him more scantily than ever; 
and often when he had thrown himself upon it no longer than 
a few minutes, he had got up again, and haunted that neigh¬ 
bourhood. 

On a day in August, when Mr. Stryver (after notifying to 
his jackal that “he had thought better of that marrying 
matter”) had carried his delicacy into Devonshire and when 
the sight and scent of flowers in the City streets had some 
waifs of goodness in them for the worst, of health for the sick¬ 
liest, and of youth for the oldest, Sydney’s feet still trod those 

22S 




THE FELLOW OF NO DELICACY 


229 


stones. From being irresolute and purposeless, his feet be¬ 
came animated by an intention, and, in the working out of 
that intention, they took him to the Doctor’s door. 

lie was shown up-stairs, and found Lucie at her work, 
alone. She had never been quite at her ease with him, and 
received him with some little embarrassment as he seated 
himself near her table. But, looking up at his face in the inter¬ 
change of the first few common-places, she observed a change 
in it. 

“I fear you are not well,Mr. Carton!” 

“No. But the life I lead, Miss Manette, is not conducive 
to health. What is to be expected of, or by, such profligates ?” 

“Is it not—forgive me; I have begun the question on my 
lips—a pity to live no better life?” 

“God knows it is a shame!” 

“Then why not change it?” 

Looking gently at him again, she was surprised and sad¬ 
dened to see that there were tears in his eyes. There were 
tears in his voice too, as he answered: 

“It is too late for that. I shall never be better than I am. 
I shall sink lower, and be worse.” 

He leaned an elbow on her table, and covered his eyes with 
his hand. The table trembled in the silence that followed. 

She had never seen him softened, and was much distressed. 
He knew her to be so, without looking at her, and said: 

“Pray forgive me, Miss Manette. I break down before 
the knowledge of what I want to say to you. Will you hear 
me?” 

“If it will do you any good, Mr. Carton, if it would make 
you happier, it would make me very glad! 

“God bless you for your sweet compassion!” 

He unshaded his face after a little while, and spoke steadily. 

“Don't be afraid to hear me. Don’t shrink from anything 


230 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


I say.' I am like one who died young. All my life might have 
been.” 

“No, Mr. Carton. I am sure that the best part of it might 
still be; I am sure that you might be much, much worthier 
of yourself.” 

“Say of you, Miss Manette, and although I know better— 
although in the mystery of my own wretched heart I know 
better—I shall.never forget it!” 

She was pale and trembling. He came to her relief with 
a fixed despair of himself which made the interview unlike 
any other that could have been holden. 

“If it had been possible, Miss Manette, that you could have 
returned the love of the man you see before you—self-flung 
away, wasted, drunken, poor creature of misuse as you know 
him\o be—he would ha\e been conscious this day and hour, 
in spite of his happiness, that he would bring you to misery, 
bring you to sorrow and repentance, blight you, disgrace you„ 
pull you down with him. I know very well that you can have 
no tenderness for me; I ask for none, I am even thankful that 
it cannot be.” 

“Without it, can I not save you, Mr. Carton? Can I not 
recall you—forgive me again!—to a better course? Can I in 
no way repay your confidence? I know this is a confidence,” 
she modestly said, after a little hesitation, and in earnest 
tears, “I know you would say this to no one else. Can I turn 
it to no good account for yourself, Mr. Carton?” 

He shook his head. 

“To none. No, Miss Manette, to none. If you will hear 
me through a very little more, all you can ever do for me is 
done. I wish you to know that you have been the last dream 
of my soul. In my degradation I have not been so degraded 
but that the sight of you with your father, and of this home 
made such a home by you, has stirred old shadows that I 


THE FELLOW OF NO DELICACY 


231 


thought had died out of me. Since I knew you, I have been 
troubled by a remorse that I thought would never reproach 
me again, and have heard whispers from old voices impelling 
me upward, that I thought were silent for ever. I have had 
unformed ideas of striving afresh, beginning anew, shaking off 
sloth and sensuality, and fighting out the abandoned fight. 
A dream, all a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the 
sleeper where he lay down, but I wish you to know that you 
inspired it.” 

“Will nothing of it remain? O Mr. Carton, think again 1 
Try again!” 

“No, MissManette; all through it, I have known myself 
to be quite undeserving. And yet I have had the weakness, 
and have still the weakness, to wish you to know with what 
a sudden mastery you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, 
into fire—a fire, however, inseparable in its nature from my¬ 
self, quickening nothing, lighting nothing, doing no service, 
idly burning away.” 

“Since it is my misfortune, Mr. Carton, to have made you 
more unhappy than you were before you knew me—’ 

“Don’t say that. Miss Manette, for you would have re¬ 
claimed me, if anything could. You will not be the cause of 
my becoming worse.” 

“Since the state of your mind that you describe, is, at all 
events, attributable to some influence of mine—this is what 
I mean, if I can make it plain—can I use no influence to serve 
you? Have I no power for good, with you, at all? 

“The utmost good that I am capable of now, Miss Manette, 
I have come here to realise. Let me carry through the rest 
of my misdirected life, the remembrance that I opened my 
heart to you, last of all the world; and that there was some¬ 
thing left in me at this time which you could deplore and 

# pity.” 


232 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“Which I entreated you to believe, again and again, most 
fervently, with all my heart, was capable of better things, 
Mr. Carton!” 

“Entreat me to believe it no more, Miss Manette. I have 
proved myself, and I know better. I distress you; I draw 
fast to an end. Will you let me believe, when I recall this 
day that the last confidence of my life was reposed in your 
pure and innocent breast, and that it lies there alone, and will 
be shared by no one?” 

“If that will be a consolation to you, yes.” 

“Not even by the dearest one ever to be known to you?” 

“Mr. Carton,” she answered, after an agitated pause, “the 
secret is yours, not mine; and I promise to respect it.” 

“Thank you. And again, God bless you.” 

He put her hand to his lips, and moved towards the door. 

“Be under no apprehension, Miss Manette, of my ever re¬ 
suming this conversation by so much as a passing word. I 
will never refer to it again. If I were dead, that could not be 
surer than it is henceforth. In the hour of my death, I shall 
hold sacred the one good remembrance—and shall thank and 
bless you for it—that my last avowal of myself was made to 
you, and that my name, and faults, and miseries were gently 
carried in your heart. May it otherwise be light and happy!” 

He was so unlike what he had ever shown himself to be, 
and it was so sad to think how much he had thrown away, 
and how much he every day kept down and perverted, that 
Lucie Manette wept mournfully for him as he stood looking 
back at her. 

“Be comforted!” he said, “I am not worth such feeling, 
Miss Manette. An hour or two hence, and the low compan¬ 
ions and low habits that I scorn but yield to, will render me 
less worth such tears as those, than any wretch who creeps^ 
along the streets. Be comforted! But, within myself, I 


THE FELLOW OF NO DELICACY 


233 


shall always be, towards you, what I am now, though out¬ 
wardly I shall be what you have heretofore seen me. The 
last supplication but one I make to you, is, that you will be¬ 
lieve this of me:” 

“I will, Mr. Carton.” 

“My last supplication of all, is this; and with it, I will re¬ 
lieve you of a visitor with whom I well know you have nothing 
in unison, and between whom and you there is an impassable 
space. It is useless to say it, I know, but it rises out of my 
soul. For you, and for any dear to you, I would do anything. 
If my career were of that better kind that there was any op¬ 
portunity or capacity of sacrifice in it, 1 would embrace any 
sacrifice for you and for those dear to you. Try to hold me in 
your mind, at some quiet times, as ardent and sincere in this 
one thing. The time will come, the time will not be long in 
coming, when new ties will be formed about you—ties that 
will bind you yet more tenderly and strongly to the home 
you so adorn—the dearest ties that will ever grace and gladden 
you. O Miss Manette, when the little picture of a happy 
father’s face looks up in yours, when you see your own bright 
beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then 
that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you 
love beside you!” 

He said, “Farewell!” said a last “God bless you!” and left 
her. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

THE HONEST TRADESMAN 

To the eyes of Mr. Jeremiah Cruncher, sitting on his stool 
in f leet Street with his grisly urchin beside him, a vast num¬ 
ber and variety of objects in movement were every day pre¬ 
sented. Who could sit upon anything in Fleet Street during 
the busy hours of the day, and not be dazed and deafened by 
two immense processions, one ever tending westward with the 
sun, the other ever tending eastward from the sun, both evev 
tending to the plains beyond the range of red and purple 
where the sun goes down! 

With his straw in his mouth,Mr. Cruncher sat watching the 
two streams, like the heathen rustic who has for several cen ¬ 
turies been on duty watching one stream—saving that Jerry 
had no expectation of their ever running dry. Nor would it 
have been an expectation of a hopeful kind, since a small part 
of his income was derived from the pilotage of timid women 
(mostly of a full habit and past the middle term of life) from 
Tellson’s side of the tides to the opposite shore. Brief as such 
companionship was in every separate instance, Mr. Cruncher 
never failed to become so interested in the lady as to express 
a strong desire to have the honour of drinking her very good 
health. And it was from the gifts bestowed upon him towards 
the execution of this benevolent purpose, that he recruited 
his finances, as just now observed. 

Time was, when a poet sat upon a stool in a public place, 
and mused in the sight of men. Mr. Cruncher, sitting on a 
stool in a public place, but not being a poet, mused as little 
as possible, and looked about him. 

234 


I 


THE HONES'! TRADESMAN 


235 


It fell out that he was thus engaged in a season when crowds 
were few, and belated women few, and when his affairs in gen¬ 
eral were so unprosperous as to awaken a strong suspicion 
in his breast that Mrs. Cruncher must have been “flopping” 
in some pointed manner, when an unusual concourse pouring 
down Fleet Street westward, attracted his attention. Look¬ 
ing that way, Mr. Cruncher made out that some kind of 
funeral was coming along, and that there was popular objec¬ 
tion to this funeral, which engendered uproar. 

“Young Jerry,” saidMr. Cruncher, turning to his offspring, 
“it’s a buryin’.” 

“Hooroar, father!” cried Young Jerry. 

The young gentleman uttered this exultant sound with 
mysterious significance. The elder gentleman took the cry 
so ill, that he watched his opportunity, and smote the young 
gentleman on the ear. 

“What d’ye mean? What are you hooroaring at? What 
do you want to conwey to your own father, you young Rip? 
This boy is a getting too many for me!” saidMr. Cruncher, 
surveying him. “Him and his hooroars! Don t let me hear 
no more of you, or you shall feel some more of me. D’ye 
hear?” 

“I warn’t doing no harm,” Young Jerry protested, rubbing 
his cheek. 

“Drop it then,” saidMr. Cruncher; “I won’t have none of 
your no harms. Get atop of that there seat, and look at the 
crowd.” 

His son obeyed, and the crowd approached; they were 
bawling and hissing round a dingy hearse and dingy mourning 
coach, in which mourning coach there was only one mourner, 
dressed in the dingy trappings that were considered essential 
to the dignity of the position. The position appeared by no 
means to please him. however, with an increasing rabble sur- 


236 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


rounding the coach, deriding him, making grimaces at him. 
and incessantly groaning and calling out: “Yah! Spies! Tstl 
Yahal Spies!” with many compliments too numerous and 
forcible to repeat. 

Funerals had at all times a remarkable attraction for Mr. 
Cruncher; he always pricked up his senses, and became ex¬ 
cited when a funeral passed Tellson’s. Naturally, therefore, * 
funeral with this uncommon attendance excited him greatly 
and he asked of the first man who ran against him: 

“What is it, brother? What’s it about?” 

“7 don’t know,” said the man. “Spies! Yaha! Tst 
Spies!” 

He asked another man. “Who is it?” 

“7 don’t know,” returned the man, clapping his hands tc 
his mouth nevertheless, and vociferating in a surprising heat 
and with the greatest ardour, “Spies! Yaha! Tst, tst! 
Spi-ies!” 

At length, a person better informed on the merits of the 
case, tumbled against him, and from this person he learned 
that the funeral was the funeral of one Roger Cly. 

“Was lie a spy?” asked Mr. Cruncher. 

“Old Bailey spy,” returned his informant. “Yaha! Tst! 
Yah! Old Bailey Spi-i-ies!’ ’ 

“Why, to be sure!” exclaimed Jerry, recalling the Trial at 
which he had assisted. “I’ve seen him. Dead, is he?” 

“Dead as mutton,” returned the other, “and can’t be too 
dead. Have ’em out, there! Spies! Pull xem out, there! 
Spies!” 

The idea was so acceptable in the prevalent absence of any 
idea, that the crowd caught it up with eagerness, and loudly 
repeating the suggestion to have ’em out, and to pull ’em 
out, mobbed the two vehicles so closely that they came to a 
stop. On the crowd’s opening the coach doors, the one 



THE HONEST TRADESMAN 


237 


mourner scuffled out of himself and was in their hands for a 
moment; but he was so alert, and made such good use of his 
time, that in another moment he was scouring away up a 
by-street, after shedding his cloak, hat, long hatband, white 
pocket-hand_xOmef, and other symbolical tears. 

These, the people tore to pieces and scattered far and wide 
with great enjoyment, while the tradesmen hurriedly shut up 
their shops; for a crowd in those times stopped at nothing, 
and was a monster much dreaded. They had already got the 
length of opening the hearse to take the coffin out, when some 
brighter genius proposed instead, its being escorted to its 
destination amidst general rejoicing. Practical suggestions 
being much needed, this suggestion, too, was received with 
acclamation, and the coach was immediately filled with eight 
inside and a dozen out, while as many people got on the roof 
of the hearse as could by any exercise of ingenuity stick upon 
it. Am ong the first of these volunteers was Jerry Cruncher 
himself, who modestly concealed his spiky head from the 
observation of Tellson’s, in the further corner of the mourn¬ 
ing coach. 

The officiating undertakers made some protest against 
these changes in the ceremonies; but, the river being alarm¬ 
ingly near, and several voices remarking on the efficacy of cold 
immersion in bringing refractory members of the profession to 
reason, the protest was faint and brief. The remodelled pro¬ 
cession started, with a chimney-sweep driving the hearse— 
advised by the regular driver, who was perched beside him 
under close inspection, for the purpose—and with a pieman, 
also attended by his cabinet minister, driving the mourning 
coach. A bear-leader, a popular street character of the time, 
was impressed as an additional ornament, before the caval¬ 
cade had gone far down the Strand; and his bear, who was 


238 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


black and very mangy, gave quite an Undertaking air to that 
part of the procession in which he walked. 

Thus, with beer-drinking, pipe-smoking, song-roaring, and 
infinite caricaturing of woe, the disorderly procession went 
its way, recruiting at every step, and all the shops shutting 
up before it. Its destination was the old cnurch of Saint 
Pancras, far off in the fields. It got there in course of time; 
insisted on pouring into the burial-ground; finally, accom¬ 
plished the interment of the deceased Roger Cly in its own 
way, and highly to its own satisfaction. 

The dead man disposed of, and the crowd being under the 
necessity of providing some other entertainment for itself, 
another brighter genius (or perhaps the same) conceived the 
humour of impeaching casual passers-by, as Old Bailey spies, 
and wreaking vengeance on them. Chase was given to some 
scores of inoffensive persons who had never been near the Old 
Bailey in their lives, in the realisation of this fancy, and they 
were roughly hustled and maltreated. The transition to the 
sport of window-breaking, and thence to the plundering of 
public-houses, was easy and natural. At last, after several 
hours, when sundry summer-houses had been pulled down, 
and some area-railings had been torn up, to arm the more bel¬ 
ligerent spirits, a rumour got about that the Guards were com¬ 
ing. Before this rumour, the crowd gradually melted away, 
and perhaps the Guards came, and perhaps they never came: 
and this was the usual progress of a mob. 

Mr. Cruncher did not assist at the closing sports, but had 
remained behind in the churchyard, to confer and condole 
with the undertakers. The place had a soothing influence on 
him. He procured a pipe from a neighbouring public-house, 
and smoked it, looking in at the railings and maturely con¬ 
sidering the spot. 

“Jerry,” said Mr. Cruncher, apostrophising himself in his 


THE HONEST TRADESMAN 


239 


usual way, “you see that there Cly that day, and you see with 
your own eyes that he was a young ’un and a straight made 
’un.” 

Having smoked his pipe out, and ruminated a tittle longer, 
he turned himself about, that he might appear, before the 
hour of closing, on his station at Tellson’s. Whether his 
meditations on mortality had touched his liver, or whether 
his general health had been previously at all amiss, or whether 
he desired to show a little attention to an eminent man, is not 
so much to the purpose, as that he made a short call upon his 
medical adviser—a distinguished surgeon—on his way back . 1 

Young Jerry relieved his father with dutiful interest, and 
reported No job in'his absence. The bank closed, the ancient 
clerks came out, the usual watch was set, and Mr. Cruncher 
and his son went home to tea. 

“Now, I tell you where it is!” saidMr. Cruncher to his wife, 
on entering. “If, as a honest tradesman, my wenturs goes 
wrong to-night, I shall make sure that you’ve been praying 
again me, and I shall work you for it just the same as if I seen 
you do it.” 

The dejected Mrs. Cruncher shook her head. 

“Why, you’re at it afore my face!” saidMr. Cruncher, with 
signs of angry apprehension. 

“I am saying nothing.” 

“Well, then; don’t meditate nothing. You might as well 
flop as meditate. You may as well go again me one way as 
another. Drop it altogether.” 

“Yes, Jerry.” 

“Yes, Jerry,” repeated Mr. Cruncher, sitting down to tea. 
“Ah! It is yes, Jerry. That’s about it. You may say yes. 
Jerry.” 

1 The call was for the purpose of arranging the terms upon which 
Cruncher was to deliver to the surgeon the body he expected to exhume. 


240 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Mr. Cruncher had no particular meaning in these sulky 
corroborations, but made use of them, as people not unfre- 
quently do to express general ironical dissatisfaction. 

“You and your yes, Jerry,” saidMr. Cruncher, taking a bite 
out of his bread-and-butter, and seeming to help it down with 
a large invisible oyster out of his saucer. “Ah! I think so. 

I believe you.” 

“You are going out to-night?” asked his decent wife, when 
he took another bite. 

“Yes, I am.” 

“May I go with you, father?” asked his son, briskly. 

“No, you mayn’t. I’m a going—as your mother knows— 
a fishing. That’s where I’m going to. Going a fishing.” 

“Your fishing-rod gets rayther rusty; don’t it, father?” 

“Never you mind.” 

“Shall you bring any fish home, father?’ 

“If I don’t, you’ll have short commons, to-morrow,” re¬ 
turned that gentleman, shaking his head; “that’s questions 
enough for you; I ain’t a going out till you’ve been long 
a-bed.” 

He devoted himself during the remainder of the evening to 
keeping a most vigilant watch on Mrs. Cruncher, and sullenly 
holding her in conversation that she might be prevented from 
meditating 'any petitions to his disadvantage. With this 
view, he urged his son to hold her in conversation also, and 
led the unfortunate woman a hard life by dwelling on any 
causes of complaint he could bring against her, rather than 
he would leave her for a moment to her own reflections. The 
devoutest person could have rendered no greater homage to 
the efficacy of an honest prayer than he did in this distrust of 
his wife. It was as if a professed unbeliever in ghosts should 
be frightened by a ghost story. 

/‘And mind you!” saidMr. Cruncher. “No games to- 


THE HONEST TRADESMAN 


241 


morrow! If I, as a honest tradesman, succeed in providing 
a jinte of meat or two, none of your not touching of it, and 
sticking to bread. If I, as a honest tradesman, am able to 
provide a little beer, none of your declaring on water. When 
you go to Rome, do as Rome does. Rome will be a ugly 
customer to you, if you don’t, I’m your Rome, you know.” 

Then he began grumbling again: 

“With your flying into the face of your own wittles and 
drink! I don’t know how scarce you mayn’t make the wit¬ 
tles and drink here, by your flopping tricks and your unfeeling 
conduct. Look at your boy: he is your’n, ain’t he? He’s as 
thin as a lath. Do you call yourself a mother, and not know 
that a mother’s first duty is to blow her boy out?” 

This touched Young Jerry on a tender place; who adjured 
his mother to perform her first duty, and, whatever else she 
did or neglected, above all things to lay especial stress on the 
discharge of that maternal function so affectingly and deli¬ 
cately indicated by his other parent. 

Thus the evening wore away w T ith the Cruncher family 
until Young Jerry was ordered to bed, and his mother, laid 
under similar injunctions, obeyed them. Mr. Cruncher be¬ 
guiled the earlier watches of the night with solitary pipes, and 
did not start upon his excursion until nearly one o’clock. 
Towards that small and ghostly hour, he rose up from his 
chair, took a key out of his pocket, opened a locked cupboard 
and brought forth a sack, a crowbar of convenient size, a rope 
and chain, and other fishing tackle of that nature. Disposing 
these articles about him in skilful manner, he bestowed a 
parting defiance on Mrs. Cruncher, extinguished the light, 
and went out. 

Young Jerry, who had only made a feint of undressing when 
he went to bed, was not long after his father. Under cover 
of the darkness he followed out of the room, followed down 


242 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


the stairs, followed down the. court, followed out into the 
streets. He was in no uneasiness concerning his getting into 
the house again, for it was full of lodgers, and the door stood 
ajar all night. 

Impelled by a laudable ambition to study the art and 
mystery of his father’s honest calling, Young Jerry, keeping 
as close to house-fronts, walls, and doorways, as his eyes were 
close to one another, held his honoured parent in view. The 
honoured parent steering Northward, had not gone far, when 
he was joined by another disciple of Izaak Walton, and the 
two trudged on together. 

Within half an hour from the first starting, they were be¬ 
yond the winking lamps, and the more than winking watch¬ 
men, and were out upon a lonely road. Another fisherman 
was picked up here—and that so silently, that if Young Jerry 
had been superstitious, he might have supposed the second 
follower of the gentle craft to have, all of a sudden, split him¬ 
self into two. 

The three went on, and Young Jerry went on, until the 
three stopped under a bank overhanging the road. Upon the 
top of the bank was a low brick wall, surmounted by an iron 
'•ailing. In the shadow of bank and wall the three turned out 
>f the road, and up a blind lane, of which the wall—there, 
risen to some eight or ten feet high—formed one side. Crouch¬ 
ing down in a corner, peeping up the lane, the next object 
that Young Jerry saw, was the form of his honoured parent, 
pretty well defined against a watery and clouded moon, nim¬ 
bly scaling an iron gate. He was soon over, and then the 
second fisherman got over, and then the third. They all 
dropped softly on the ground within the gate, and lay there a 

1 The fisherman-author, born 1593, died 1683. His Complete Angler was 
punished in 1653. 



the honest tradesman 


243 


little—listening perhaps. Then, they moved away on their 
hands and knees. 

It was now Young Jerry’s turn to approach the gate: which 
he did, holding his breath. Crouching down again in a corner 
there, and looking in, he made out the three fishermen creep¬ 
ing through some rank grass, and all the gravestones in the 
churchyard—it was a large churchyard that they were in— 
looking on like ghosts in white, while the church tower itself 
looked on like the ghost of a monstrous giant. They did not 
creep far, before they stopped and stood upright. And then 
they began to fish. 

They fished with a spade at first. Presently the honoured 
parent appeared to be adjusting some instrument like a great 
corkscrew. Whatever tools they worked with, they worked 
hard, until the awful striking of the church clock so terrified 
Young Jerry, that he made off, with his hair as stiff as his 
father’s. 

But his long-cherished desire to know- more about these 
matters, not only stopped him in his running away, but lured 
him back again. They were still fishing perseveringly, when 
he peeped in at the gate for the second time; but, now they 
seemed to have got a bite. There was a screwing and com¬ 
plaining sound down below, and their bent figures were 
strained, as if by a weight. By slow degrees the weight broke 
away the earth upon it, and came to the surface. Young 
Jerry very well knew what it would be; but, when he saw it, 
and saw his honoured parent about to wrench it open, he was 
so frightened, being new to the sight, that he made off again, 
and never stopped until he had run a mile or more. 

He would not have stopped then for anything less necessary 
than breath, it being a spectral sort of race that he ran, and 
one highly desirable to get to the end of. He had a strong 
idea that the coffin he had seen was running after him; and. 


244 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


pictured as hopping on behind him, bolt upright, upon its 
narrow end, always on the point of overtaking him and hop¬ 
ping on at his side—perhaps taking his arm—it was a pur¬ 
suer to shun. It was an inconsistent and ubiquitous fiend 
too, for, while it was making the whole night behind him 
dreadful, he darted out into the roadway to avoid dark alleys, 
fearful of its coming hopping out of them like a dropsical 
boy’s-Ivite without tail and wings. It hid in doorways too, 
rubbing its horrible shoulders against doors, and drawing 
them up to its ears, as if it were laughing. It got into shad¬ 
ows on the road, and lay cunningly on its back to trip him up. 
All this time it was incessantly hopping on behind and gaining 
on him, so that when the boy got to his own door he had rea¬ 
son for being half dead. And even then it would not leave 
him, but followed him up-stairs with a bump on every stair, 
scrambled into bed with him, and bumped down, dead and 
heavy, on his breast when he fell asleep. 

From his oppressed slumber, Young Jerry in his closet was 
awakened after daybreak and before sunrise, by the presence 
of his father in the family room. Something had gone wrong 
with him; at least, Young Jerry inferred, from the circum¬ 
stance of his holdingMrs. Cruncher by the ears, and knocking 
the back of her head against the head-board of the bed. 

“I told you I would,” said Mr. Cruncher, “and I did.” 

“Jerry, Jerry, Jerry!” his wife implored. 

“You oppose yourself to the profit of the business,” said 
Jerry, “and me and my partners suffer. You was tp honour 
and obey; why the devil don’t you?” 

“I try to be a good wife. Jerry,” the poor woman protested, 
with tears. 

“Is it being a good wife to oppose your husband’s business? 
Is it honouring your husband to dishonour his business? Is 



THE HONEST TRADESMAN 


245 


it obeying your husband to disobey him on the wital subject 
of his business?” 

“You hadn’t taken to the dreadful business then, Jerry.” 

“It’s enough for you,” retorted Mr. Cruncher, “to be the 
wife of a honest tradesman, and not to occupy your female 
mind with calculations when he took to his trade or when he 
didn’t. A honouring and obeying wife would let his trade 
alone altogether. Call yourself a religious woman? If you’re 
a religious woman, give me a irreligious one! You have no 
more nat’ral sense of duty than the bed of this here Thames 
river has of a pile, and similarly it must be knocked into you.” 

The altercation was conducted in a low tone of voice, and 
terminated in the honest tradesman’s kicking off his clay- 
soiled boots, and lying down at his length on the floor. After 
taking a timid peep at him lying on his back, with his rusty 
hands under his head for a pillow, his son lay down too, and 
fell asleep again. 

There was no fish for breakfast, and not much of anything 
else. Mr. Cruncher was out of spirits, and out of temper, 
and kept an iron pot-lid by him as a projectile for the correc¬ 
tion of Mrs. Cruncher, in case he should observe any symp¬ 
toms of her saying Grace. He was brushed and washed at the 
usual hour, and set off with his son to pursue his ostensible 
calling. 

Young Jerry, walking with the stool under his arm at his 
father’s side along sunny and crowded Fleet Street, was a very 
different Young Jerry from him of the previous night, run¬ 
ning home through darkness and solitude from his grim pur¬ 
suer. His cunning was fresh with the day, and his qualms 
were gone with the night—in which particulars it is not im¬ 
probable that he had compeers in Fleet Street and the City 
of London, that fine morning. 

“Father,” said Young Jerry, as they walked along: taking 


246 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


care to keep at arm’s length and to have the stool well 
between them: “what’s a Resurrection-Man?” 

Mr. Cruncher came to a stop on the pavement before he an¬ 
swered, “How should I know?” 

“I thought you* knowed everything, father,” said the art¬ 
less boy. 

“Hem! Well,” returned Mr. Cruncher, going on again, 
md lifting off his hat to give his spikes free play, “he’s a 
tradesman.” 

“What’s his goods, father?” asked the brisk Young Jerry. 

“His goods,” said Mr. Cruncher, after turning it over in his 
mind,“ is a branch of Scientific goods.” 

“Persons’ bodies, ain’t it, father?” asked the lively boy. 

“I believe it is something of that sort,” said Mr. Cruncher. 

“Oh, father, I should so like to be a Resurrection-Man when 
I’m quite growed up!” 

Mr. Cruncher was soothed, but shook his head in a dubious 
and moral way. “It depends upon how you dewelop your 
talents. Be careful to dewelop your talents, and never to say 
no more than you can help to nobody, and there’s no telling 
at the present time what you may not come to be fit for.” 
As Young Jerry, thus encouraged, went on a few yards in ad¬ 
vance, to plant the stool in the shadow of the Bar,Mr. Crun¬ 
cher added to himself: “Jerry, you honest tradesman, there’s 
hopes wot that boy will yet be a blessing to you, and a recom¬ 
pense to you for his mother!” 






CHAPTER XV. 


KNITTING 

There had been earlier drinking than usual in the wine-s. op 
of Monsieur Defarge. As early as six o’tlock in the morning, 
sallow faces peeping through its barred windows had descried 
other faces within, bending over measures of wine. Mon¬ 
sieur Defarge sold a very thin wine at the best of times, but it 
would seem to have been an unusually thin wine that he sold 
at this time. A sour wine, moreover, or a souring, for its 
influence on the mood of those who drank it was to make them 
gloomy. No vivacious Bacchanalian flame leaped out of the 
pressed grape of Monsieur Defarge: but a smouldering fire 
that burnt in the dark, lay hidden in the dregs of it. 

This had been the third morning in succession, on which 
there had been early drinking at the wine-shop of Monsieur 
Defarge. It had begun onMonday, and here was Wednesday 
come. There had been more of early brooding than drinking; 
for, many men had listened and whispered and slunk about 
there from the time of the opening of the door, who could not 
have laid a piece of money on the counter to save their souls. 
These were to the full as interested in the place, however, as if 
they could have commanded whole barrels of wine; and they 
glided from seat to seat, and from corner to corner, swallowing 
talk in lieu of drink, with greedy looks. 

Notwithstanding an unusual flow of company, the master 
of the wine-shop was not visible. He was not missed; for, 
nobody who crossed the threshold looked for him, nobody 
asked for him, nobody wondered to see only Madame Defarge 

in her seat, presiding over the distribution of wine, with a 

247 


248 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


bowl of battered small coins before her, as much defaced and 
beaten out of their original impress as the small coinage of 
humanity from whose ragged pockets the Tr b»d come. 

A suspended interest and a prevalent absence of mind were 
perhaps observed by the spies who looked in at the wine¬ 
shop, as they looked in at every place, high and low, from the 
king’s palace to the. criminal’s gaol. Games at cards lan¬ 
guished, players at dominoes musingly built towers with 
them, drinkers drew figures on the tables with spilt drops 
of wine, Madame Defarge herself picked out the pattern on 
her sleeve with her toothpick, and. saw and heard something 
inaudible and invisible a long way off. 

Thus, Saint Antoine in this vinous feature of his, until 
midday. It was high noontide, when two dusty men passed 
through his streets and under his swinging lamps: of whom 
one was Monsieur Defarge: the other a mender of roads in 
a blue cap. All adust and athirst, the two entered the wine¬ 
shop. Their arrival had lighted a kind of fire in the breast 
of Saint Antoine, fast spreading as they came along, which 
stirred and flickered in flames of faces at most doors and 
windows. Yet, no one had followed them, and no man spoke 
when they entered the wine-shop, though the eyes of every 
man there were turned upon them. 

“Good day, gentlemen!” said Monsieur Defarge. 

It may have been a signal for loosening the general tongue. 
It elicited an answering chorus of “Good day!” 

“It is bad weather, gentlemen,” said Defarge, shaking 
his head. 

Upon which, every man looked at his neighbour, and then 
all cast down their eyes and sat silent. Except one man, 
who got up and went out. 

“My wife,” said Defarge aloud, addressing Madame De¬ 
farge: “I have travelled certain leagues with this good mender 




KNITTING 


249 


of roads, called Jacques. I met him—by accident—a day 
and a half’s journey out of Paris. He is a good child, this 
mender of roads, called Jacques. Give him to drink, my 
wife!” * 

A second man got up and went out. Madame Defarge 
set wine before the mender of roads called Jacques, who dof¬ 
fed his blue cap to the company, and drank. In the breast 
of his blouse he carried some coarse dark bread; he ate of 
this between whiles, and sat munching and drinking near 
Madame Defarge’s counter. A third man got up and went 
out. 

Defarge refreshed himself with a draught of wine—but 
he took less than was given to the stranger, as being himself 
a man to whom it was no rarity—and stood waiting until 
the countryman had made his breakfast. He looked at no 
one present, and no one now looked at him; not evenMadame 
Defarge, who had taken up her knitting, and was at work, 

“Have you finished your repast, friend?” he asked, in due 
season. 

“Yes, thank you.” 

“Come, then! You shall see the apartment that I told 
| you you could occupy. It will suit you to a marvel.” 

Out of the wine-shop into the street, out of the street into 
a court-yard, out of the court-yard up a steep staircase, out 
of the staircase into a garret,—formerly the garret where a 
white-haired man sat on a low bench, stooping forward and 
very busy, making shoes. 

No white-haired man was there now; but, the three men 
were there who had gone out of the wine-shop singly. And be¬ 
tween them and the white-haired man afar off, was the one 
small link, that they had once looked in at him through the 
chinks in the wall 


250 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Defarge closed the door carefully, and spoke in a subdued 
voice: 

‘‘Jacques One, Jacques Two, Jacques Three! This is the 
witness encountered by appointment, by me, Jacques Four. 
He will tell you all. Speak, Jacques Five!” 

The mender of roads, blue cap in hand, wiped his swarthy j 
forehead with it, and said, “Where shall I commence, mon- j 
sieur?” 

“Commence,” was Monsieur Defarge’s not unreasonable 
reply,“ at the commencement.” 

“I saw him then, messieurs,” began the mender of roads, i 
“a year ago this running summer, underneath the carriage 
of the Marquis, hanging by the chain. Behold the manner 
of it. I leaving my work on the road, the sun going to bed, 
the carriage of theMarquis slowly ascending the hill, he hang¬ 
ing by the chain—like this.” 

Again the mender of roads went through the whole per¬ 
formance; in which he ought to have been perfect by that 
time, seeing that it had been the infallible resource and in¬ 
dispensable entertainment of his village during a whole year. 

Jacques One struck in, and asked if he had ever seen the 
man before? 

“Never,” answered the mender of roads, recovering his 
perpendicular. 

Jacques Three demanded how he afterwards recognized 
him then? 

“By his tall figure,” said the mender of roads, softly, and 
wdth his finger at his nose. “When Monsieur the Marquis 
demands that evening, ‘Say, what is he like?’ I make response, 
‘Tall as a spectre/ ” 

“You should have said, short as a dwarf,” returned Jacques 
Two. 

“But w T hat did I know? The deed was not then accom 




KNITTING 


251 


plished, neither did he confide in me. Observe! Under 
those circumstances even, I do not offer my testimony. Mon- 
; sieur the Marquis indicates me with his finger, standing near 
our little fountain, and says, ‘To me! Bring that rascalT 
| My faith, messieurs, I offer nothing.” 

“He is right there, Jacques,” murmured Defarge, to him 
who had interrupted- “Go on!” 

“Good!” s^id the mender of roads, with an air of mystery. 

“The tall man is lost, and he is sought—how many months? 
Nine, ten, eleven?” 

“No matter, the number,” said Defarge. “He is well hid¬ 
den, but at last he is unluckily found. Go on!” 

“I am again at work upon the hill-side, and the sun is again 
about to go to bed. I am collecting my tools to descend to 
my cottage down in the village below, where it is already 
dark, when I raise my eyes, and see coming over the hill six 
| soldiers. In the midst of them is a tall man with his arms 
bound—tied to his sides—like this!” 

With the aid of his indispensable cap, he represented a 
man with his elbows bound fast at his hips, with cords that 
were knotted behind him. 

“I stand aside, messieurs, by my heap of stones, to see 
the soldiers and their prisoner pass (for it is a solitary road, 
that, where any spectacle is well worth looking at), and at 
first, as they approach, I see no more than that they are six 
soldiers with a tall man bound, and that they are almost 
black to my sight—except on the side of the sun going to 
bed, where they have a red edge, messieurs. Also, I see that 
their long shadows are on the hollow ridge on the opposite 
side of the road, and are on the hill above it, and are like the 
shadows of giants. Also, I see that they are covered with 
dust, and that the dust moves with them as they come, tramp, 
tramp! But when they advance quite near to me, I recog- 



252 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


nise the tall man, and he recognises me. Ah, but he would , 

be well content to precipitate himself over the hill-side once I ( 
again, as on the evening when he and I first encountered, , 

close to the same spot!” 1 

He described it as if he were there, and it was evident that { 
he saw it vividly; perhaps he had not seen much in his life. 

“I do not show the soldiers that I recognise the tall man; j 
he does not show the soldiers that he recognises me; we do , 
it, and we know it, with our eyes. ‘Come on!’ says the chief , 
of that company, pointing to the village, ‘bring him fast to j 
his tomb!’ and they bring him faster. I follow. His arms ( 
are swelled because of being bound so tight, his wooden shoes , 
are large and clumsy, and he is lame. Because he is lame, ( 
and consequently slow, they drive him with their guns—like 
this!” 

He imitated the action of a man’s being impelled forward 
by the butt-ends of muskets. I 

“As they descend the hill like madmen running a race, he | 
falls. They laugh and pick him up again. His face is bleed¬ 
ing and covered with dust, but he cannot touch it; thereupon 
they laugh again. They bring him into the village; all the 
village runs to look; they take him past the mill, and up to 
the prison; all the village sees the prison gate open in the 
darkness of the night, and swallow him—like this!” 

He opened his mouth as wide as he could, and shut it with 
a sounding snap of his teeth. Observant of his unwilling¬ 
ness to mar the effect by opening it again, Defarge said, “Go 
on, Jacques.” 

“All the village,” pursued the mender of roads, on tiptoe 
and in a low voice, “withdraws; all the village whispers by 
the fountain; all the village sleeps; all the village dreams of 
that unhappy one, within the locks and bars of the prison on 
the crag, and never to come out of it, except to perish. In 





KNITTING 


253 


the morning, with my tools upon my shoulder, eating my 
morsel of black bread as I go, I make a circuit by the prison, 
on my way to my work. There I see him, high up, behind 
the bars of a lofty iron cage, bloody and dusty as last night, 
looking through. He has no hand free, to wave to me; I dare 
not call to him; he regards me like a dead man.” . 

Defarge and the three glanced darkly at one another. The 
looks of all of them were dark, repressed, and revengeful, 
as they listened to the countryman’s story; the manner of 
all of them, while it was secret, was authoritative too. They 
had the air of a rough tribunal; Jacques One and Two sitting 
on the old pallet-bed, each with his chin resting on his hand, 
and his eyes intent on the road-mender; Jacques Three, equal¬ 
ly intent, on one knee behind them, with his agitated hand 
always gliding over the network of fine nerves about his 
mouth and nose; Defarge standing between them and the 
narrator, whom he had stationed in the light of the window, 
by turns looking from him to them, and from them to him. 

“Go on, Jacques,” said Defarge. 

“He remains up there in his iron cage some days. The 
village looks at him by stealth, for it is afraid. But it al¬ 
ways looks up, from a distance, at the prison on the crag; 
and in the evening, when the work of the day is achieved and 
it assembles to gossip at the fountain, all faces are turned to¬ 
wards the prison. Formerly, they were turned towards the 
posting-house; now, they are turned towards the prison. 
They whisper at the fountain, that although condemned to 
death he will not be executed; they say that petitions have 
been presented in Paris, showing that he was enraged and 
made mad by the death of his child; they say that a petition 
has been presented to the King himself. What do I know? 
It is possible. Perhaps yes, perhaps no.” 

“Listen then, Jacques,” Number One of that name sternly 



254 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


interposed. “Know that a petition was presented to the 
King and Queen. All here, yourself excepted,, saw the King 
take it, in his carriage in the street, sitting beside the Queen. 

It is Defarge whom you see here, who, at the hazard of his 
life, darted out before the horses, with the petition in his 
hand.” 

“And once again listen, Jacques!” said the kneeling Num¬ 
ber Three: his fingers ever wandering over and over those 
fine nerves, with a strikingly greedy air, as if he hungered 
for something—that was neither food nor drink; “the guard, 
horse and foot, surrounded the petitioner, and struck him 
blows. You hear?” 

“I hear, messieurs.” 

“Go on then,” said Defarge. 

. “Again; on the other hand, they whisper at the fountain,” 
resumed the countryman, “that he is brought down into our 
country to be executed on the spot, and that he will very 
certainly be executed. They even whisper that because he 
has slain Monseigneur, and because Monseigneur was the 
father of his tenants—serfs—what you will—he will be 
executed as a parricide. One old man says at the fountain, 
that his right hand, armed with the knife, will be burnt off 
before his face; that, into wounds which will be made in his 
arms, his breast, and his legs, there will be poured boiling 
oil, melted lead, hot resin, wax, and sulphur; finally, that he 
will be torn limb from limb by four strong horses. That old 
man says all this was actually done to a prisoner who made 
an attempt on the life of the late King, Louis Fifteen. But 
how do I know if he lies? I am not a scholar.” 

“Listen once again then, Jacques!” said the man with the 
restless hand and the craving air. “The name of that 
prisoner was Damiens, and it was all done in open day, in 
the open streets of this city of Paris; and nothing was more 


KNITTING 


255 


noticed in the vast concourse that saw it done, than the 
crowd of ladies of quality and fashion, who were full of eager 
attention to the last—to the last, Jacques, prolonged until 
nightfall, when he had lost two legs and an arm, and still 
breathed ! 1 And it was done—why, how, old are you?” 

“Thirty-five,” said the mender of roads, who looked sixty. 

“It was done when you were more than ten years old; you 
j might have seen it.” 

“Enough!” said Defarge, with grim impatience. “Long 
live the Devil! Go on.” 

“Well! Some whisper this, some whisper that; they speak 
of nothing else; even the fountain appears to fall to that 
tune. At length, on Sunday night when all the village is 
asleep, come soldiers, winding down from the prison and 
their guns ring on the stones of the little street. Workmen 
dig, workmen hammer, soldiers laugh and sing; in the inorn- 
ing by the fountain, there is raised a gallows forty feet high , 2 
poisoning the water.” 

The mender of roads looked through rather than at the 
low ceiling, and pointed as if he saw the gallows somewhere 
in the sky. 

“All work is stopped, all assemble there, nobody leads 
the cows out, the cows are there with the rest. At midday, 
the roll of drums. Soldiers have marched into the prison in 
the night, and he is in the midst of many soldiers. He is 
bound as before, and in his mouth there is a gag—tied so, 
with a tight string, making him look almost as if he laughed.” 
He suggested it, by creasing his face with his two thumbs, 
from the corners of his mouth to his ears. “On the top of 
the gallows is fixed the knife, blade upwards, with its point 

1 Robert Fx*ancois Damiens was a man of low character who had been 
both a soldier and a domestic servant. In 1757 he stabbed Louis XV as the 
king was about to enter his carriage at Versailles. Though his attempt 
upon the life of the king was unsuccessful, he was executed with great 
barbarity in the manner here described. 

2 S«e Carlvle. History of the French Revolution, Part I, Book II, Chap n, 
p. a?.. 




256 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


in the air. He is hanged there forty feet high-and is left 

hanging, poisoning the water. . 

They looked at one another, as he used his blue cap to 
wipe his face, on which the perspiration had started afresh 

while he recalled the spectacle. 

“It is frightful, messieurs. How can the women and 
the children draw water! Who can gossip of an evening 
under that shadow 1 Under it, have I said? When I 
left the village, Monday evening as the sun was going to 
bed and looked back from the hill, the shadow struck 
across the church, across the mill, across the prison-seemed 
to strike across the earth, messieurs, to where the sky rests 

"tL hungry man gnawed one of his fingers as he looked at 
the other three-, and his finger quivered with the craving that 


was on him. _ it 

“That’s all, messieurs. I left at sunset (as I had been 
warned to do), and I walked on, that night and half next day, 
until I met (as I was warned I should) this comrade. With 
him, I came on, now riding and now walking, through the 
rest’of yesterday and through last night. And here you see 


me i 

After a gloomy silence, the first Jacques said, Good! 
You have acted and recounted faithfully. Will you wait for 
us a little, outside the door?” 

“Very willingly,” said the mender of roads. Whom Defarge 
escorted to the top of the stairs, and, leaving seated there, 
returned. 

The three had risen, and their heads were together when 
he came back to the garret. 

“How say you, Jacques?” demanded Number One. “ To 
be registered?” 


KNITTING 


257 


“To be registered as doomed to destruction,” returned 
Defarge. 

“Magnificent!” croaked the man with the craving. 

“The chateau and all the race?” inquired the first. 

“The chateau and all the race,” returned Defarge. “Ex¬ 
termination.” 

The hungry man repeated, in a rapturous croak, “Magni¬ 
ficent!” and began gnawing another finger. 

“Are you sure,” asked Jacques Two, of Defarge, “that no 
embarrassment can arise from our manner of keeping the 
register? Without doubt it is safe, for no one beyond our¬ 
selves can decipher it; but shall we always be able to decipher 
it—or, I ought to say, will she?” 

“Jacques,” returned Defarge, drawing himself up, “if 
madame my wife undertook to keep the register in her 
memory alone, she -would not lose a word of it—not a syllable 
of it. Knitted, in her own stitches and her own symbols, it 
will always be as plain to her as the sun. Confide in Madame 
Defarge. It would be easier for the weakest poltroon that 
lives, to erase himself from existence, than to erase one 
letter of his name or crimes from the knitted register of 
Madame Defarge.” 

There was a murmur of confidence and approval, and then 
the man who hungered, asked: “Is this rustic to be sent 
back soon? I hope so. lie is very simple; is he not a little 
dangerous ?” 

“He knows nothing,” said Defarge; “at least nothing 
more than would easily elevate himself to a gallows of the 
same height. I charge myself with him; let him remain with 
me; I will take care of him, and set him on his road. He 
wishes to see the fine world—the King, the Queen, and 
Court; let him see them on Sunday.” 

“What?” exclaimed the hungry man, staring. “Is it a 




258 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


good sign, that he wishes to see Royalty and Nobility?” 

“Jacques,” said Defarge; “judiciously show a cat milk, 
if you wish her to thirst for it. Judiciously show a dog 
his natural prey, if you wish him to bring it down one day/’ 

Nothing more was said, and the mender of roads, being 
found already dozing on the topmost stair, was advised to 
lay himself down on the pallet-bed and take some rest. He 
needed no persuasion, and was soon asleep. 

Worse quarters than Defarge’s wine-shop could easily have 
been found in Paris for a provincial slave of that degree. 
Saving for a mysterious dread of madame by which he was 
constantly haunted, his life was very new and agreeable. 
But madame sat all day at her counter, so expressly uncon¬ 
scious of him, and so particularly determined not to.perceive 
that his being there had any connection with anything below 
the surface, that he shook in his wooden shoes whenever his 
eye lighted on her. For, he contended with himself that it 
was impossible to foresee what the lady might pretend next; 
and he felt assured that if she should take it into her brightly 
ornamented head to pretend that she had seen him do a 
murder and afterwards flay the victim, she would infallibly 
go through with it until the play was played out. 

Therefore, when Sunday came, the mender of roads was 
not enchanted (though he said he was) to find that madame 
was to accompany monsieur and himself to Versailles. It 
was additionally disconcerting to have madame knitting all 
the way there, in a public conveyance; it was additionally 
disconcerting yet, to have madame in the crowd in the after¬ 
noon, still with her knitting in her hands as the crowd waited 
to see the carriage of the King and Queen. 

“You work hard, madame,” said a man near her. 

“Yes,” answered Madame Defarge; “I have a good deal 
to do.” 


KNITTI-NG 


259 


“What do you make, madame?” 

“Many things.” 

“For instance-” 

“For instance,” returned Madame Defarge, composedly, 
“shrouds.” 

The man moved a little further away, as soon as he could, 
and the mender of roads fanned himself with his blue cap: 
feeling it mightily close and oppressive. If he needed a 
King and Queen to restore him, he was fortunate in having 
his remedy at hand; for, soon the large-faced King and the 
fair-faced Queen came in their golden coach, attended by the 
shining Bull’s Eye of their Court , 1 a glittering multitude of 
laughing ladies and fine lords; and in jewels and silks and 
powder and splendour and elegantly spurning figures and 
handsomely disdainful faces of both sexes, the mender of 
roads bathed himself, so much to his temporary intoxication, 
that he cried Long live the King, Long live the Queen, Long 
live everybody and everything! as if he had never heard of 
ubiquitous Jacques in his time. Then there were gardens, 
court-yards, terraces, fountains, green banks, more King and 
Queen, more Bull’s Eye, more lords and ladies, more Long 
live they all! until he absolutely wept with sentiment. 
During the whole of this scene, which lasted some three 
hours, he had plenty of shouting and weeping and sentimen¬ 
tal company, and throughout Defarge held him by the collar, 
as if to restrain him from flying at the objects of his brief 
devotion and tearing them to pieces. 

“Bravo!” said Defarge, clapping him on the back when 
it was over, like a patron; “you are a good boy! 

The mender of roads was now coming to himself, and was 


i This passage was suggested by Carlyle’s History of the French Revo u- 
tion. Part I, Book II, Chap, vi, p. 58. The term Bull's Rye as applied to the 
court is suggested by the term oeil de boeuf , wui -h was au autech i ntei ad¬ 
joining the king’s sleeping apartment at the Palace of Versailles. Here 
the courtiers gathered each morning to await the king s appearance. 




260 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


mistrustful of having made a mistake in his late demonstra¬ 
tions; but no. ^ . . . . 

“You are the fellow we want,” said Defarge. in his ear; 

“you make these fools believe that it will last for ever. 
Then, they are the more insolent, and it is the nearer 

ended.” 4< , 

“Hey!” cried the mender of roads, reflectively, mats 

true.” , . 

“These fools know nothing. While they despise your 

breath, and would stop it for ever and ever, in you or in a 
hundred like you rather than in one of their own horses or 
dogs, they only know what your breath tells them. Let it 
deceive them, then, a little longer; it cannot deceive them 

too much.” , 

Madame Defarge looked superciliously at the client, and 

nodded in confirmation. 

“As to you,” said she, “you would shout and shed tears 
for anything, if it made a show and a noise. Say! Would 

you not?” }> 

“Truly, madame, I think so. For the moment. 

‘If you were shown a great heap of dolls, and were set 
upon them to pluck them to pieces and despoil them for 
your own advantage, you would pick out the richest and 
gayest. Say. Would you not?” 

“Truly yes, madame.” 

“Yes. And if you were shown a flock of birds, unable to 
fly, and were set upon them to strip them of their feathers 
for your own advantage, you would set upon the birds of the 
finest feathers; would you not?” 

“It is true, madame.” 

“You have seen both dolls and birds to-day, said Madame 
Defarge, with a wave of her hand towards the place where 
they had last been apparent; “now go home!” 


CHAPTER XVL 

STILL KNITTING 

Madame Defarge and monsieur her luisband returned ami¬ 
cably to the bosom of Saint Antoine, while a speck in a blue 
cap toiled through the darkness, and through the dust, and 
down the weary miles of avenue by the wayside, slowly tend¬ 
ing towards that point of the compass where the chateau of 
Monsieur the Marquis, now in his grave, listened to the whis¬ 
pering trees. Such ample leisure had the stone faces, now 
for listening to the trees and to the fountain, that the few 
village scarecrows who, in their quest for herbs to eat and 
fragments of dead stick to burn, strayed within sight of the 
great stone court-yard and terrace staircase, had it borne 
in upon their starved fancy that the expression of the faces 
was altered. A rumor just lived in the village—had a faint 
and bare existence there, as its people had—that when the 
knife struck home, the faces changed, from faces of pride to 
faces of anger and pain; also, that when that dangling figure 
was hauled up forty feet above the fountain, they changed 
again, and bore a cruel look of being avenged, which they 
would henceforth bear for ever. In the stone face over the 
great window of the bed-chamber where the murder was 
done,'two fine dints were pointed out in the sculptured nose, 
which everybody recognised, and which nobody had seen of 
old; and on the scarce occasions when two or three ragged 
peasants emerged from the crowd to take a hurried peep at 
Monsieur the Marquis petrified, a skinny finger would not 
have pointed to it for a minute, before they all started away 
among the moss and leaves, like the more fortunate hares 
who could find a living there. 


262 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Chateau and hut, stone face and dangling figure, the red 
stain on the stone floor, and the pure water in the village well 
.—thousands of acres of land—a whole province of France— 
all France itself—lay under the night sky, concentrated into 
a faint hair-breadth line. So does a whole world, with all its 
greatnesses and littlenesses, lie in a twinkling star. And as 
mere human knowledge can split a ray of light and analyse 
the manner of its composition, so, sublimer intelligences may 
read in the feeble shining of this earth of ours, every thought 
and act, every vice and virtue, of every responsible creature 
on it. 

The Defarges, husband and wife, came lumbering under the 
starlight, in their public vehicle, to that gate of Paris where- 
unto their journey naturally tended. There was the usual 
stoppage at the barrier guard-house, and the usual lanterns 
came glancing forth for the usual examination and inquiry. 
Monsieur Defarge alighted; knowing one or two of the sol¬ 
diery there, and one of the police. The latter he was in timate 
with, and affectionately embraced. 

When Saint Antoine had again enfolded the Defarges in 
his dusky wings, and they, having finally alighted near the 
Saint’s boundaries, were picking their way on foot through 
the black mud and oflal of his streets, Madame Defarge spoke 
to her husband: 

•‘Say then, my friend; what did Jacques of the police tell 
thee?” 

“Very little to-night, but all he knows. There is another 
spy commissioned for our quarter. There may be many 
more, for all that he can say, but he knows of one.” 

“Eh well!” said Madame Defarge, raising her eyebrows 
with a cool business air. “It is necessary to register him. 
How do they call that man?” 

“He is English.” 


STILL KNITTING 


263 


“So much the better. His name?” 

“Barsad,” said Defarge, making it French by pronunci¬ 
ation. But, he had been so careful to get it accurately, that 
he then spelt it with perfect correctness. 

“Barsad,” repeated madame. “Good. Christian name?” 

“John.” 

“John Barsad,” repeated madame, after murmuring it 
mce to herself. “Good. His appearance; is it known?” 

“Age, about forty years; height, about five feet nine; 
black hair; complexion dark; generally, rather handsome 
visage; eyes dark, face thin, long, and sallow; nose aquiline, 
but not straight, having a peculiar inclination towards the 
left cheek; expression, therefore, sinister.” 

“Eh my faith. It is a portrait!” said madame, laughing 
“He shall be registered to-morrow.” 

They turned into the wine-shop, which was closed (for it 
was midnight), and where Madame Defarge immediately 
took her post at her desk, counted the small moneys that had 
been taken during her absence, examined the stock, went 
through the entries in the book, made other entries of her 
own, checked the serving man in every possible way, and 
finally dismissed him to bed. Then she turned out the con¬ 
tents of the bowl of money for the second time, and began 
knotting them up in her handkerchief, in a chain of separate 
knots, for safe keeping through the night. All this while, 
Defarge, with his pipe in, his mouth, walked up and down, 
complacently admiring, but never interfering; in which con¬ 
dition, indeed, as to the business and his domestic affairs, 
he walked up and down through life. 

The night was hot, and the shop, close shut and surround¬ 
ed by so foul a neighbourhood, was ill-smelling. Monsieur 
Defarge’s olfactory sense was by no means delicate, but the 
stock of wine smelt much stronger than it ever tasted, and 


264 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


so did the stock of rum and brandy and aniseed. He whiffed 
the compound of scents away, as he put down his smoked- 
out pipe. 

“You are fatigued,” said madame, raising her glance as 
she knotted the money. “There are only the usual odours/* 

“I am a little tired,” her husband acknowledged. 

“You are a little depressed, too,” said madame, whose 
ouick eyes had never been so intent on the accounts, but they 
had had a ray or two for him. “Oh, the men, the men!” 

“But my dear!” began Defarge. 

“But my dear!” repeated madame, nodding firmly; “but 
my dear! You are faint of heart to-night, my dear!” 

“Well, then,” said Defarge, as if a thought were wrung 
out of his breast, “it is a long time.” 

“It is a long time,” repeated his wife; “and when is it not 
a long time? Vengeance and retribution require a long time; 
it is the rule.” 

“It does not take a long time to strike a man with light¬ 
ning,” said Defarge. 

“How long,” demanded madame, composedly, “does it 
take to make and store the lightning? Tell me.” 

Defarge raised his head thoughtfully, as if there were some¬ 
thing in that too. 

“It does not take a long time,” said madame, “for an earth¬ 
quake to swallow a town. Eh well! Tell me how long it 
takes to prepare the earthquake?”' 

“A long time; I suppose,” said Defarge. 

“But when it is ready, it takes place, and grinds to pieces 
everything before it. In the meantime, it is always prepar¬ 
ing, though it is not seen or heard. That is your consolation. 
Keep it.” 

She tied a knot with flashing eyes, as if it throttled a foe. 

“I tell thee,” said madame, extending her right hand, for 


STILL KNITTING 


265 


emphasis, “that although it is a long time on the road, it is 
on the road and coming. I tell thee it never retreats, and 
never stops. I tell thee it is always advancing. Look 
around and consider the lives of all the world that we know, 
consider the faces of all the world that we know, consider 
the rage and discontent to which the Jacquerie addresses 
itself with more and more of certainty every hour. Can such 
things last? Bah! I mock you.” 

“My brave wife,” returned Defarge, standing before her 
with his head a little bent, and his hands clasped at his back, 
like a docile and attentive pupil before his catechist, “I do 
not question all this. But it has lasted a long time, and it 
is possible—you know well, my wife, it is possible—that it 
may not come, during our lives.” 

“Eh well! How then?” demanded madame, tying another 
knot, as if there were another enemy strangled. 

“Well!” said Defarge, with a half-complaining and half- 
apologetic shrug. “We shall not see the triumph.” 

“We shall have helped it,” returned madame, with her 
extended hand in strong action. “Nothing that we do is 
done in vain. I believe, with all my soul, that we shall see 
the triumph. But even if not, even if I knew certainly not, 
show me the neck of an aristocrat and tyrant, and still I 
would-” 

Then madame, with her teeth set, tied a very terrible knot 
indeed. 

“Hold!” cried Defarge, rfddening a little as if he felt 
charged with cowardice; “I too, my dear, will stop at noth¬ 
ing-” 

“Yes! But it is your weakness that, you sometimes need 
to see your victim and your opportunity, to sustain you. 
Sustain" yourself without that. When the time comes, let 


266 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


loose a tiger and a devil; but wait for the time with the tiger 
and the devil chained—not shown—yet always ready.. 

Madame enforced the conclusion of this piece of advice by 
striking her little counter with her chain of money as if she 
knocked its brains out, and then gathering the heavy hand¬ 
kerchief under her arm in a serene manner, and observing 
that it was time to go to bed. 

Next noontide saw the admirable woman in her usual place 
in the wine-shop, knitting away assiduously. A rose lay 
beside her, and if she now and then glanced at the flower, it 
was with no infraction of her usual preoccupied air. There 
were a few customers, drinking or nob drinking, standing or 
seated, sprinkled about. The day was very hot, and heaps 
of flies, who were extending their inquisitive and adventu¬ 
rous perquisitions into all the glutinous little glasses near 
madame, fell dead at the bottom. -Their decease made no 
impression on the other flies out promenading, who looked 
at them in the coolest manner (as if they themselves were 
elephants, or something as far removed), until they met the 
same fate. Curious to consider how heedless flies are!—per¬ 
haps they thought as much at Court that sunny summer day. 

A figure entering at the door threw a shadow on Madame 
Defarge which she felt to be a new one. She laid down her 
knitting, and began to pin her rose in her head-dress, before 
she looked at the figure. 

It was curious. The moment Madame Defarge took up 
the rose, the customers ceased talking, and began gradually 
to drop out of the wine-shop. 

“Good day, madame,” said the new-comer. 

“Good day, monsieur.” 

She said it aloud, but added to herself, as she resumed her 
knitting: “Hah! Good day, age about forty, height about 
five feet nine, black hair, generally rather handsome visage, 


STILL KNITTING 


267 


complexion dark, eyes dark, thin long and sallow face, aqui¬ 
line nose but not straight, having a peculiar inclination to¬ 
wards the left cheek which imparts a sinister expression! 
Good day, one and all!” 

“Have the goodijess to give me a little glass of old cognac, 
and a mouthful of cool fresh water, madame.”' 

Madame complied with a polite air. 

“Marvellous cognac this, madame!” 

It was the first time it had ever been so complimented, and 
Madame Defarge knew enough of its antecedents to know 
better. She said, however, that the cognac w r as flattered, 
and took up her knitting. The visitor watched her fingers 
for a few moments, and took the opportunity of observing 
the place in general. 

“You knit with great skill, madame.” 

“I am accustomed to it.” 

“A pretty pattern too!” 

“You think so?” said madame, looking at him with a smile. 

“Decidedly. May one ask what it is for?” 

“Pastime,” said madame, still looking at him with a smile, 
while her fingers moved nimbly. 

“Not for use?” 

“That depends. I may find a use for it' one day. If I do 

-well,” said madame, drawing a breath and nodding her 

head with a stern kind of coquetry, “Fll use it!” 

It was remarkable; but, the taste of Saint Antoine seemed 
to be decidedly opposed to a rose on the head-dress of Madame 
Defarge. Two men had entered separately, and had been 
about to order drink, when, catching sight of that novelty, 
they faltered, made a pretense of looking about as if for some 
friend who was not there, and went away. Nor, of those 
who had been there when this visitor entered, was there one 
left. They had all dropped off. The spy had kept his eyes 


268 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


open, but had been able to detect no sign. They had loung¬ 
ed away in a poverty-stricken, purposeless, accidental man¬ 
ner, quite natural and unimpeachable. 

“John/’ thought madame, checking off her work as her 
fingers knitted, and her eyes looked at the stranger. J'Stay 
long enough, and I shall knit ‘Barsad’ before you go.” 

“You have a husband, madame?” 

“I have.” 

“Children?” 

“No children.” 

“Business seems bad?” 

“Business is very bad; the people are so poor.” 

“Ah, the unfortunate, miserable people! So oppressed, 
too—as you say.” 

“As you say,” madame retorted, correcting him, and deftly 
knitting an extra something into his name that boded him 
no good. 

“Pardon me; certainly it was I who said so, but you natur¬ 
ally think so. Of course.” 

“/ think?” returned madame, in a high voice. “I and my 
husband have enough to do to keep this wine-shop open, 
without thinking. All we think, here, is how to live. That 
is the subject we think of, and it gives us, from morning to 
night, enough to think about, without embarrassing our heads 
concerning others. I think for others? No, no. 

The spy, who was there to pick up any crumbs he could 
find or make, did not allow his baffled state to express itself 
in his sinister face; but, stood with an air of gossiping gal¬ 
lantry, leaning his elbow on Madame Defarge s little counter, 
and occasionally sipping his cognac. 

“A bad business this, madame, of Gaspard s execution. 
Ah! the poor Gaspard!” With a sigh of great compassion. 

“My faith!” returned madame, coolly and lightly, “if 


STILL KNITTING 


269 


people use knives for such purposes, they have to pay for it. 
He knew beforehand what the price of his luxury was; he 
has paid the price.” 

“I believe,” said the spy, dropping his soft voice to a tone 
that invited confidence, and expressing an injured revolu¬ 
tionary susceptibility in every muscle of his wicked face: “I 
believe there is much compassion and anger in this neighbour¬ 
hood, touching the poor fellow? Between ourselves.” 

“Is there?” asked madame, vacantly. 

“Is there not?” 

“—Here is my husband!” said Madame Defarge. 

As the keeper of the wine-shop entered at the door, the 
spy saluted him by touching his hat, and saying, with an en¬ 
gaging smile, “Good day, Jacques!” Defarge stopped short 
and stared at him. 

“Good day, Jacques!” the spy repeated; with not quite so 
much confidence, or quite so easy a smile under the stare. 

“You deceive yourself, monsieur,” returned the keeper 
of the wine-shop. “You mistake me for another. That is 
not my name. I am Ernest Defarge.” 

“It is all the same,” said the spy, airily, but discomfited 
too: “good day!” 

“Good day!” answered Defarge, drily. 

“I was saying to madame, with whom I had the pleasure 
of chatting when you entered, that they tell me there is— 
and no wonder!—much sympathy and anger in Saint Antoine, 
touching the unhappy fate of poor Gaspard. v 

“No one has told me so,” said Defarge, shaking his head. 
“I know nothing of it.” 

Having said it, he passed behind the little counter, and 
stood with his hand on the back of his wife’s chair, looking 
over that barrier at the person to whom they were both op- 


270 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


posed, and whom either of them would have shot with the 
greatest satisfaction. 

The spy, well used to his business, did not change his un¬ 
conscious attitude, but drained his little glass of cognac, took 
a sip of fresh water, and asked for another glass of cognac. 
Madame Defarge poured it out for him, took to her knitting 
again, and hummed a little song over it. 

“You seem to know this quarter well; that is to say, better 

than I do?” observed Defarge. 

“Not at all, but I hope to know it better. I am so pro¬ 
foundly interested in its miserable inhabitants.” 

“Hah!” muttered Defarge. 

“The pleasure of conversing with you, Monsieur Defarge, 
recalls to me,” pursued the spy, “that I have the honour of 
cherishing some interesting associations with your name. 

“Indeed!” said Defarge, with much indifference. 

“Yes, indeed. When Doctor Manette was released, >ou, 
his old domestic, had the charge of him, I know. He was 
delivered to you. You see I am informed of the circum¬ 
stances?” 

“Such is the fact, certainly,” said Defarge. He had it con¬ 
veyed to him, in an accidental touch of his wife’s elbow as 
she knitted and warbled, that he would do best to answer, 
but always with brevity. 

“It was to you,” said the spy, “that his daughter came; 
and it was from your care that his daughter took him, ac¬ 
companied by a neat brown monsieur; how is he called?— 
in a little wig—Lorry—of the bank of Tellson and Company 
over to England.” 

“Such is the fact,” repeated Defarge. 

“Very interesting remembrances!” said the spy. “I have 
known Doctor Manette and his daughter, in England ” 

“Yes?” said Defarge. 


STILL KNITTING 


271 


“You don’t hear much about them now?” said the spy. 

“No,” said Defarge. 

“In effect,” madame struck in, looking up from her work 
and her little song, “we never hear about them. We received 
the news of their safe arrival, and perhaps another letter, or 
perhaps two; but, since then, they have gradually taken their 
road in life—we, ours—and we have held no correspondence.” 

“Perfectly so, madame,” replied the spy. “She is going 
to be married.” 

“Going?” echoed madame. “She was pretty enough to 
have been married long ago. You English are cold, it seems 
to me.” 

“Oh! You know I am English?” 

“I perceive your tongue is,” returned madame; “and what 
the tongue is, I suppose the man is.” 

He did not take the identification as a compliment; but 
he made the best of it, and turned it off with a laugh. After 
sipping his cognac to the end, he added: 

“Yes, Miss Manette is going to be married. But not to 
an Englishman; to one who, like herself, is French by birth. 
And speaking of Gaspard (ah, poor Gaspard! It was cruel, 
cruel!), it is a curious thing that she is going to marry the 
nephew of Monsieur the Marquis, for whom Gaspard was ex¬ 
alted to that height of so many feet; in other words, the pres¬ 
ent Marquis. But he lives unknown in England, he is no 
Marquis there; he is Mr. Charles Darnav. D’Aulnais is the 
name of his mother’s family.” 

Madame Defarge knitted steadily, but the intelligence had 
a palpable effect upon her husband. Do what he would, be¬ 
hind the little counter, as to the striking of a light and the 
lighting of his pipe, he was troubled, and his hand was not 
trustworthy. The spy would have been no spy if he had 
failed to see it, or to record it in his mind. 


272 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Having made, at least, this one hit, whatever it might 
prove to be worth, and no customers coming in to help him 
to any other, Mr. Barsad paid for what he had drunk, and 
took his leave: taking occasion to say, in a genteel manner, 
before he departed, that he looked forward to the pleasure 
of seeing Monsieur and Madame Defarge again. For some 
minutes after he had emerged into the outer presence of Saint 
Antoine, the husband and wife remained exactly as he had 
left them, lest he should come back. 

“Can it be true/’ said Defarge, in a low voice, looking 
down at his wife as he stood smoking with his hand on the 
back of her chair: “what he has said ofMa’amselleManette?” 

“As he has said it,” retorted madame, lifting her eyebrows 
a little, “it is probably false. But it may be true.” 

“If i t i s -” Defarge began, and stopped. 

“If it is?” repeated his wife. 

“_And if it does come, while we live to see it triumph—I 

hope, for her sake, Destiny will keep her husband out of 
France.” 

“Her husband’s destiny,” said Madame Defarge, with her 
usual composure, “will take him where he is to go, and will 
lead him to the end that is to end him. That is all I know.” 

“But it is very strange — now, at least, is it not very 
strange”—said Defarge, rather pleading with his wife to in¬ 
duce her to admit it, “that, after all our sympathy for Mon¬ 
sieur her father, and herself, her husband’s name should be 
proscribed under your hand at this moment, by the side of 
that* infernal dog’s who has just left us?” 

“Stranger things than that will happen when it does come,” 
answered madame. “I have them both here, of a certainty; 
and they are both here for their merits; that is enough.” 

She rolled up her knitting when she had said those words, 
and presently took the rose out of the handkerchief that was 


STILL KNITTING 


273 


wound about her head. Either Saint Antoine had an in¬ 
stinctive sense that the objectionable decoration was gone, 
or Saint Antoine was on the watch for its disappearance; 
howbeit, the Saint took courage to lounge in, very shortly 
afterwards, and the wine-shop recovered its habitual aspect. 

In the evening, at which season of all others Saint Antoine 
turned himself inside out, and sat on door-steps and window- 
ledges, and came to the corners of vile streets and courts, 
for a breath of air, Madame Defarge with her work in her 
hand was accustomed to pass from place to place and from 
group to group: a Missionary—there were many like her— 
such as the world will do well never to breed again. All the 
women knitted. They knitted worthless things; but, the 
mechanical work was a mechanical substitute for eating and 
drinking; the hands moved for the jaws and the digestive 
apparatus: if the bony fingers had been still, the stomachs 
would have been more famine-pinched. 

But, as the fingers went, the eyes went, and the thoughts. 
And as Madame Defarge moved on from group to group, all 
three went quicker and fiercer among every little knot of 
women that she had spoken with, and left behind. 

Her husband smoked at his door looking after her with 
admiration. “A great woman,” said he, “a strong woman, 
a grand woman, a frightfully grand woman!” 

Darkness closed around, and then came the ringing of 
church bells and the distant beating of the military drums 
in the Palace Court-Yard, as the women sat knitting, knit¬ 
ting. Darkness encompassed them. Another darkness was 
closing in as surely, when the church bells, then ringing 
pleasantly in many an airy steeple over France, should be 
melted into thundering cannon; when the military drums 
should be beating to drown a wretched voice, that night 
all-potent as the voice of Power and Plenty, Freedom 


274 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


and Life. So much was closing in about the women who 
sat knitting, knitting, that they their very selves were closing 
in around a structure yet unbuilt, where they were to sit 
knitting, knitting, counting dropping heads. 




CHAPTER XVII. 


ONE NIGHT 

Never did the sun go down with a brighter glory on the 
quiet corner in Soho, than one memorable evening when tht 
Doctor and his daughter sat under the plane-tree together. 
Never did the moon rise with a milder radiance over great 
London, than on that night when it found them still seated 
under the tree, and shone upon their faces through its leaves, 

Lucie was to be married to-morrow. She had reserves 
this last evening for her father, and they sat alone under the 
plane-tree. 

“You are happy, my dear father?” 

“Quite, my child.” 

They had said little, though they had been there a long 
time. When it was yet light enough to work and read, she 
had neither engaged herself in her usual work, nor had she 
read to him. She had employed herself in both ways, at 
his side under the tree, many and many a time; but, this time 
was not quite like any other, and nothing could make it so. 

“And I am very happy to-night, dear father. I am deeply 
happy in the love that Heaven has so blessed—my love for 
Charles, and Charles’s love for me. But, if my life were not 
to be still consecrated to you, or if my marriage were so ar¬ 
ranged as that it would part us, even by the length of a few 
of these streets, I should be more unhappy and self-reproach¬ 
ful now than I can tell you. Even as it is—” 

Even as it was, she could not command her voice. 

In the sad moonlight, she clasped him by the neck, and 
laid her face upon his breast. In the moonlight which is al- 

275 


276 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


ways sad, as the light of the sun itself is—as the light called 
human life is—at its coming and its going. 

“Dearest dear! Can you tell me this last time, that you 
feel quite, quite sure, no new affections of mine, and no new 
duties of mine, will ever interpose between us? I know it 
well, but do you know it? In your own heart, do you feel 
quite certain?” 

Her father answered, with a cheerful firmness of convic¬ 
tion he could scarcely have assumed, “Quite sure, my darling! 
More than that,” he added, as he tenderly kissed her: “my 
future is far brighter, Lucie, seen through your marriage, 
than it could have been—nay, than it ever was—without it.” 

“If I could hope that, my farther!-” 

“Believe it, love! Indeed it is so. Consider how natural 
and how plain it is, my dear, that it should be so. You, de¬ 
voted and young, cannot fully appreciate the anxiety I have 
felt that your life should not be wasted-” 

She moved her hafid towards his lips, but he took it in his, 
and repeated the word. 

“—whsted, my child—should not be wasted, struck aside 
from the natural order of things—for my sake. Your un¬ 
selfishness cannot entirely comprehend how much my mind 
has gone on this; but, only ask yourself, how could my hap¬ 
piness be perfect, while yours was incomplete?” 

“If I had never seen Charles, my father, I should have 
been quite happy with you.” 

He smiled at her unconscious admission that she would 
have been unhappy without Charles, having seen him; and 
replied: 

“Mv child, vou did see him. and it is Charles. If it had 
not been Charles, it would have been another. Or. if it had 
been no other. 1 should have been the caqse, and then the 


ONE NIGHT 


277 


dark part of my life would have cast its shadow beyond my¬ 
self, and would have fallen on you. 5 ’ 

It was the first time, except at the trial, of her ever hear¬ 
ing him refer to the period of his suffering. It gave her a 
strange and new sensation while his words were in her ears; 
and she remembered it long afterwards. 

“See!” said the Doctor of Beauvais, raising his hand 
towards the moon. “I have looked at her from my prison- 
window, when I could not bear her light. I have looked at 
her when it has been such torture to me to think of her shining 
upon what I had lost, that I have beaten my head against 
my prison-walls. I have looked at her, in a state so dull and 
lethargic, that I have thought of nothing but the number of 
horizontal lines I could draw across her at the full, and the 
number of perpendicular lines with which I could intersect 
them.” He added in his inward and pondering manner, as 
he looked at the moon, “It was twenty either way, I remem¬ 
ber, and the twentieth was difficult to squeeze in.” 

The strange thrill with which she heard him go back to 
that time, deepened as he dwelt upon it; but, there was no¬ 
thing to shock her in the manner of his reference. He only 
seemed to contrast his present cheerfulness and felicity with 
the dire endurance that was over. 

“I have looked at her, speculating 1 thousands of times upon 
the unborn child from whom I had been rent. Whether it 
was alive. Whether it had been born alive, or the poor 
mothers shock had killed it. Whether it was a son who 
would some day avenge his father. (There was a time in 
my imprisonment, when my desire for vengeance was un¬ 
bearable.) Whether it was a son who would never know his 
fathers story; who might even live to weigh the possibility 
of his father’s having disappeared of his own will and act. 
Whether it was a daughter who would grow to be a woman.” 


278 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


She drew closer to him and kissed his cheek and his h*md. 

“I have pictured my daughter to myself as perfectly for¬ 
getful of me—rather, altogether ignorant of me, and uncon¬ 
scious of me. I have cast up the years of her age, year after 
year. I have seen her married to a man who knew nothing 
of my fate. I have altogether perished from the remem¬ 
brance of the living, and in the next generation my place 
was a blank.” 

“My father! Even to hear that you had such thoughts of 
a daughter who never existed, strikes to my heart as if I had 
been that child.” 

“You, Lucie? It is out of the consolation and restoration 
you have brought to me, that these remembrances arise, and 
pass between us and the moon on this last night.—What did 
I say just now?” 

“She knew nothing of you. She cared nothing for you. 

“So! But on other moonlight nights, when the sadness and 

the silence have touched me in a different way—have affected 
me with something as like a sorrowful sense of peace, as any 
emotion that had pain for its foundations could—I have im¬ 
agined her as coming to me in my cell, and leading me out 
into the freedom beyond the fortress. I have seen her image 
in the moonlight often, as I now see you; except that I never 
held her in my arms; it stood between the little grated window 
and the door. But, you understand that that was not the 
child I am speaking of?” 

“The figure was not; the—the—image; the fancy?” 

“No. That was another thing. It stood before my dis¬ 
turbed sense of sight, but it never moved. The phantom 
that my mind pursued, was another and more real child. Of 
her outward appearance I know no more than that she was 
like her mother. The other had that likeness too—as you 
have—but was not the same. Can you follow me, Lucie? 


ONE NIGHT 


279 


Hardly, I think? I doubt you must have been a solitary 
prisoner to understand these perplexed distinctions.” 

His collected and calm manner could not prevent her 
blood from running cold, as he thus tried to anatomize his 
old condition. 

“In that more peaceful state, I have imagined her, in the 
moonlight, coming to me and taking me out to show me that 
the home of her married life was full of her loving remem¬ 
brance of her lost father. My picture was in her room, and 
I was in her prayers. Her life was active, cheerful, useful; 
but my poor history pervaded it all.” 

“I w’as that child, my father. I was not half so good, but 
in my love that was I.” 

“And she showed me her children,” said the Doctor of 
Beauvais, “and they had heard of me, and had been taught 
to pity me. When they passed a prison of the State, they 
kept far from its frowning walls, and looked up at its bars, 
and spoke in whispers. She could never deliver me; I im¬ 
agined that she always brought me back after showing me 
such things. But then, blessed with the relief of tears, I fell 
upon my knees, and blessed her.” 

“I am that child, I hope, my father. O my dear, my dear, 
will you bless me as. fervently to-morrow?” 

“Lucie, I recall these old troubles in the reason that I have 
to-night for loving you better than words can tell, and thank¬ 
ing God for my great happiness. My thoughts, when they 
\,ere wildest, never rose near the happiness that I have known 
with you, and that we have before us.” 

He embraced her, solemnly commended her to Heaven, and 
humbly thanked Heaven for having bestowed her on him. 
By-and-by, they went into the house. 

There was no one bidden to the marriage but Mr. Lorry; 
there was even to be no bridesmaid but the gauntMiss Pross. 


280 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


The marriage was to make no change in their place of resi¬ 
dence; they had been able to extend it, by taking to them' 
selves the upper rooms formerly belonging to the apocryphal 
invisible lodger, and they desired nothing more. 

Doctor Manette was very cheerful at the little supper. 
They were only three at table, and Miss Pross made the third. 
He regretted that Charles was not there; was more than half 
disposed to object to the loving little plot that kept him away, 
and drank to him affectionately. 

So, the time came for him to bid Lucie good night, and they 
separated. But, in the stillness of the third hour of the morn¬ 
ing, Lucie came down-stairs again, and stole into his room; 
not free from unshaped fears, beforehand. 

All things, however, were in their places; all was quiet; and 
he lay asleep, his white hair picturesque on the untroubled 
pillow, and his hands lying quiet on the coverlet. She put 
her needless candle in the shadow at a distance, crept up to 
his bed, and put her lips to his; then, leaned over him, and 
looked at him. 

Into his handsome face, the bitter waters of captivity had 
worn; but, he covered up their tracks with a determination so 
strong, that he held the mastery of them even in his sleep. 
A more remarkable face in its quiet, resolute, and guarded 
struggle with an unseen assailant, was not to be beheld in all 
the wide dominions of sleep, that night. 

She timidly laid her hand on his dear breast, and put up 
a prayer that she might ever be as true to him as her love 
aspired to be, and as his sorrows deserved. Then, she with¬ 
drew her hand, and kissed his lips once more, and went away. 
So, the sunrise came, and the shadows of the leaves of the 
plane-tree moved upon his face, as softly as her lips had 
moved in praying for him. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


NINE DAYS 

The marriage-day was shining brightly, and they wei\ 
ready outside the closed door of the Doctor’s room, where he 
was speaking with Charles Darnay. They were ready to go 
to church; the beautiful bride,Mr. Lorry, and Miss Pross—to 
whom the event, through a gradual process of reconcilement 
to the inevitable, would have been one of absolute bliss, but 
for the yet lingering consideration that her brother Solomon 
should have been the bridegroom. 

“And so,” said Mr. Lorry, who could not sufficiently ad¬ 
mire the bride, and who had been moving round her to take 
in every point of her quiet, pretty dress; “and so it was for 
this, my sw^eet Lucie, that I brought you across the Channel, 
such a baby! Lord bless me! How little I thought what I 
was doing! How lightly I valued the obligation I was con¬ 
ferring on my friend Mr. Charles!” 

“You didn’t mean it,” remarked the, matter-of-fact Miss 
Pross, “and therefore how could you know it? Nonsense!” 

“Really? Well; but don’t cry,” said the gentleMr. Lorry. 

“I am not crying,” saidMiss Pross; “you are.” 

“I, my Pross?” (By this time, Mr. Lorry dared to be 
pleasant with her, on occasion.) 

“You were, just now; I saw you do it, and I don’t wonder 
at it. Such a present of plate as you have made ’em, is 
enough to bring tears into anybody’s eyes. There’s not a 
fork or a spoon in the collection,” said Miss Pross, “that I 
didn’t cry over, last night after the box came, till I couldn’t 
see it.” 


281 


282 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


-I am highly gratified,” said Mr. Lorry, "though, upon my 
honour, I had no intention of rendering those trifling articles 
of remembrance invisible to a.iy one. Dear me! This is an 
occasion that makes a man speculate on all he has lost. 
Dear, dear, dear! To think that there mighty have been a 
Mrs. Lorry, any time these fifty years almost!” 

"Not at all!” From Miss Pross. 

“You think there never might have been a Mrs. Lorry? 
asked the gentleman of that name. 

. “Pooh!” rejoinedMiss Pross; “you were a bachelor in your 
j|0 

“Well 1” observed Mr. Lorry, beamingly adjusting his little 

wig, “that seems probable, too.” 

“And you were cut out for a bachelor,” pursued Miss 
Pross, “before you were put in your cradle.” 

“Then, I think,” said Mr. Lorry, “that I was very unhand- 
somely dealt with, and that I ought to have had a voice in 
the selection of my pattern. Enough! Now, my dear Lucie, 
drawing his arm soothingly round her waist, “I hear them 
moving in the next room, and Miss Pross and I, as two formal 
folks of business, are anxious not to lose the final opportunity 
of saying something to you that you wish to hear. You leave 
your good father, my dear, in hands as earnest and as loving 
as your own; he shall be taken every conceivable care of; 
during the next fortnight, while you are in Warwickshire and 
thereabouts, even Tellson’s shall go to the wall (comparatively 
speaking) before him. And when, at the fortnight’s end, he 
comes to join you and your beloved husband, on your other 
fortnight’s trip in Wales, you shall say that we have sent him 
to you in the best health and in the happiest frame. Now, I 
hear Somebody’s step coming to the door. Let me kiss my 
dear girl with an old-fashioned bachelor blessing, before 
Somebody comes to claim his own.” 


NINE DAYS 


283 


For a moment, he held the fair face from him to look at 
the well-remembered expression on the forehead, and then 
laid the bright golden hair against his little brown wig, with 
a genuine tenderness and delicacy which, if such things be old* 
fashioned, were as old as Adam. 

The door of the Doctor’s room opened, and he came out 
with Charles Darnay. He was so deadly pale—which had not 
been the case when they went in together—that no vestige of 
colour was to be seen in his face. But, in the composure of 
his manner he was unaltered, except that to the shrewd glance 
of Mr. Lorry it disclosed some shadowy indication that the 
old air of avoidance and dread had lately passed over him, 
like a cold wind. 

He gave his arm to his daughter, and took her down-stairs 
to the chariot whichMr. Lorry had hired in honour of the day. 
The rest followed in another carriage, and soon, in a neigh¬ 
bouring church, where no strange eyes looked on, Charles 
Darnay and Lucie Manette were happily married. 

Besides the glancing tears that shone among the smiles of 
the little group when it was done, some diamonds, very bright 
and sparkling, glanced on the bride’s hand, which were newly 
released from the dark obscurity of one of Mr. Lorry’s 
pockets. They returned home to breakfast, and all went 
well, and in due course the golden hair that had mingled 
with the poor shoemaker’s white locks in the Paris garret, 
was mingled with them again in the morning sunlight, on the 
threshold of the door at parting. 

It was a hard parting, though it w r as not for long. But her 
father cheered her, and said at last, gently disengaging him¬ 
self from her enfolding arms, “Take her, Charles! She is 
yours!” 

And her agitated hand weaved to them from a chaise win- 
do v% and she v 7 as gone. 


284 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


The corner being out of the way of the idle and curious, 
and the preparations having been very simple and few, the 
Doctor, Mr. Lorry, and Miss Press, were left quite alone. It 
was when they turned into the welcome shade of the cool old 
hall, that Mr. Lorry observed a great change to have come 
over the Doctor; as if the golden arm uplifted there, had 

struck him a poisoned blow. 

He had naturally repressed much, and some revulsion 
might have been expected in him when the occasion for re¬ 
pression was gone. But, it was the old scared lost look that 
troubled Mr. Lorry; and through his absent manner of clasp¬ 
ing his head and drearily wandering away into his own room 
when they got up-stairs, Mr. Lorry was reminded of Defarge 
the wine-shop keeper, and the starlight ride. 

“I think,” he whispered to Miss Pross, after anxious con¬ 
sideration, “I think we had best not speak to him just now, 
or at all disturb him. I must look in at Tellson s; so I will 
go there at once and come back presently. Then, we will 
take him a ride into the country, and dine there, and all will 


be well.” 

It was easier for Mr. Lorry to look in atTellson’s, than to 
look out of Tellson’s. He was detained two hours. When he 
came back, he ascended the old staircase alone, having asked 
no question of the servant; going thus into the Doctor’s 
rooms, he was stopped by a low sound of knocking. 

“Good God!” he said, with a start. “What’s that?’ 

Miss Pross, with a terrified face, was at his ear. “O me, 
O me! All is lost!” cried she, wringing her hands. “What 
is to be told to Ladybird? He doesn’t know me, and is 
making shoes!” 1 

Mr. Lorry said what he could to calm her, and went himself 

i The character of Dr. Manette is a study of alternating personality—a 
subject which has lately been much discussed. See Principles of Psychology, 
by Professor William James, I, 391. 


NINE DAYS 


285 


into the Doctor’s room. The bench was turned towards the 
light, as it had been when he had seen the shoemaker at his 
work before, and his head was bent down, and he was very 
busy. 

“Doctor Manette My dear friend, Doctor Manette’” 

The Doctor looked at him for a moment—half inquiringly, 
half as if he were angry at being spoken to—and bent over 
his work again. 

He had laid aside his coat and waistcoat; his shirt was open 
at the throat, as it used to be when he did that work; and even 
the old haggard, faded surface of face had come back to him. 
He worked hard—impatiently—as if in some sense of having 
been interrupted. 

Mr. Lorry glanced at the work in his hand, and observed 
that it was a shoe of the old size and shape. He took up 
another that was lying by him, and asked what it was. 

“A young lady’s walking shoe,” he muttered, without 
looking up. “It ought to have been finished long ago. Let 
it be.” 

“But. Doctor Manette Look at me!” 

He obeyed, in the old mechanically submissive manner, 
without pausing in his work. 

“You know me, my dear friend? Think again. This is 
not your proper occupation. Think, dear friend!” 

Nothing would induce him to speak more. He looked up, 
for an instant at a time, when he was requested to do so; but, 
no persuasion w^ould extract a word from him. He worked, 
and worked, and worked, in silence, and w^ords fell on him as 
they would have fallen on an echoless wall, or on the air. T. he 
only ray of hope that Mr. Lorry could discover, was, that he 
sometimes furtively looked up wfthout being asked. In that, 
there seemed a faint expression of curiosity or perplexity— 
as though he were trying to reconcile some doubts in his mind. 


286 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Two things at once impressed themselves on Mr. Lorry, as 
important above all others; the first, that this must be kept 
secret from Lucie; the second that it must be kept secret from 
all who knew him. In conjunction with Miss Pross, he took 
immediate steps towards the latter precaution, by giving out 
that the Doctor was not well, and required a few day& of com¬ 
plete rest. In aid of the kind deception to be practised on 
his daughter, Miss Pross was to write, describing his having 
been called away professionally, and referring to an imaginary 
letter of two or three hurried lines in his own hand, repre¬ 
sented to have been addressed to her by the same post. 

These measures, .advisable to be taken in any case, Mr. 
Lorry took in the hope of his coming to himself. If that 
should happen soon, he kept another course in reserve; which 
was, to have a certain opinion that he thought the best, on 
the Doctor’s case. 

In the hope of his recovery, and of resort to this third course 
being thereby rendered practicable, Mr. Lorry resolved to 
watch him attentively, with as little appearance as possible of 
doing so. lie therefore made arrangements to absent him¬ 
self from Tellson’s for the first time in his life, and took his 
post by the window in the same room. 

He was not long in discovering that it was worse than 
useless to speak to him, since, on being pressed, he became 
worried. He abandoned that attempt on the first day, and 
resolved merely to keep himself always before him, as a silent 
protest against the delusion into which he had fallen, or was 
falling. He remained, therefore, in his seat near the window, 
reading and writing, and expressing in as many pleasant and 
natural ways as he could think of, that it was a free place. 

DoctorManette took what was given him to eat and drink, 
and worked on, that first day, until it was too dark to see— 
worked on, half an hour after Mr. Lorry could not have seen, 


NINE DAYS 


287 


for his life, to read or write. When he put his tools aside as 
useless, until morning, Mr. Lorry rose and said to him: 

“Will you go out?” 

He looked down at the floor on either side of him in the old 
manner, looked up in the old manner, and repeated in the old 
low voice: 

“Out?” 

“Yes; for a walk with me. Why not?” 

He made no effort to say why not, and said not a word 
more. But, Mr. Lorry thought he saw, as he leaned forward 
on his'bench in the dusk, with his elbows on his knees and his 
head in his hands, that he was in some misty way asking 
himself, “Why not?” The sagacity of the man of business 
perceived an advantage here, and determined to hold it. 

Miss Pross and he divided the night into two watches, and 
observed him at intervals from the adjoining room. He 
paced up and down for a long time before he lay down; but, 
when he did finally lay himself down, he fell asleep. In the 
morning he was up betimes, and went straight to his bench 
and to work. 

On this second day, Mr. Lorry saluted him cheerfully by 
his name, and spoke to him on topics that had been of late 
familiar to them. Pie returned no reply, but it was evident 
that he heard what was said, and that he thought about it, 
however confusedly. This encouraged Mr. Lorry to have 
Miss Pross in with her work, several times during the day; at 
those times, they quietly spoke of Lucie, and of her father 
then present, precisely in the usual manner, and as if there 
were nothing amiss. This was done without any demon¬ 
strative accompaniment, not long enough, or often enough 
to Wass him; and it lightened Mr. Lorry’s friendly heart to 
t cntve that he looked up oftener, and th it he appeared to 


288 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


be stirred by some perception of inconsistencies surrounding 
him. 

When it fell dark again, Mr. Lorry asked him as before: 

“Dear Doctor, will you go out?” 

As before, he repeated, “Out?” 

“Yes; for a walk with me. Why not?” 

This time, Mr. Lorry feigned to go out when he could 
extract no answer from him, and, after remaining absent for 
an hour, returned. In the meanwhile, the Doctor had re¬ 
moved to the seat in the window, and had sat there looking 
down at the plane-tree; but, on Mr. Lorry’s return, he slipped 
away to his bench. 

The time went very slowly on, and Mr. Lorry’s hope dark¬ 
ened, and his heart grew heavier again, and grew yet heavier 
and heavier every day. The third day came and went, the 
fourth, the fifth. Five da^ys, six days, seven days, eight days, 
nine days. 

With a hope ever darkening, and with a heart always grow¬ 
ing heavier and heavier, Mr. Lorry passed through this anx¬ 
ious time. The secret was well kept, and Lucie was uncon¬ 
scious and happy; but he could not fail to observe that the 
shoemaker, whose hand had been a little out at first, was 
growing dreadfully skilful, and that he had never been so in¬ 
tent on his work, and that his hands had never been so nimble 
and expert, as in the dusk of the ninth evening. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


AN OPINION 

Worn out by anxious watching, Mr. Lorry fell asleep at his 
post. On the tenth morning of his suspense, he was startled 
by the shining of the sun into the room where a heavy slumber 
had overtaken him when it was dark night. 

He rubbed his eyes and roused himself; but he doubted, 
when he had done so, whether he was not still asleep. For, 
going to the door of the Doctor’s room and looking in, he 
perceived that the shoemaker’s bench and tools were put aside 
again, and that the Doctor himself sat reading at the window. 
He was in his usual morning dress, and his face (which Mr. 
Lorry could distinctly see), though still very pale, was calmly 
studious and attentive. 

Even when he had satisfied himself that he was awake, Mr. 
Lorry felt giddily uncertain for some few moments whether 
the late shoemaking might not be a disturbed dream of his 
own; for, did not his eyes show him his friend before him in 
his accustomed clothing and aspect, and employed as usual; 
and was there any sign within their range, that the change of 
which he had so strong an impression had actually happened? 

It was but the inquiry of his first confusion and astonish¬ 
ment, the answer being obvious. If the impression were not 
produced by a real corresponding and sufficient cause, how 
came he, Jarvis Lorry, there? How came he to have fallen 
asleep, in his clothes, on the sofa in Dr.Manette’s consulting- 
room, and to be debating these points outside the Doctor’s 
bedroom door in the early morning? 

Within a few minutes, Miss Pross stood whispering at his 

289 


290 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


side. If he had had any particle of doubt left, her talk would 
of necessity have resolved it; but he was by that time clear¬ 
headed, and had none. He advised that they should let the 
time go by until the regular breakfast-hour, and should then 
meet the Doctor as if nothing unusual had occurred. If he 
appeared to be in his customary state of mind, Mr. Lorry 
would then cautiously proceed to seek direction and guidance 
from the opinion he had been, in his anxiety, so anxious to 
obtain. 

Miss Pross submitting herself to his judgment, the scheme 
was worked out with care. Having abundance of time for 
his usual methodical toilette, Mr. Lorry presented himself at 
the breakfast-hour in his usual white linen, and with his 
usual neat leg. The Doctor was summoned in the usual way, 
and came to breakfast. 

So far as it was possible to comprehend him without over¬ 
stepping those delicate and gradual approaches which Mr. 
Lorry felt to be the only safe advance, he at first supposed 
that his daughter’s marriage had taken place yesterday. An 
incidental allusion, purposely thrown out, to the day of the 
week, and the day of the month, set him thinking and count¬ 
ing, and evidently made him uneasy. In all other respects, 
however, he was so composedly himself, thatMr. Lorry deter¬ 
mined to have the aid he sought. And that aid was his own. 

Therefore, when the breakfast was done and cleared away, 
and he and the Doctor were left together, Mr. Lorry said, 
feelingly: 

“My dear Manette, I am anxious to have your opinion, 
in confidence, on a very curious case in which I am deeply 
interested; that is to say, it is very curious to me; perhaps, 
to your better information it may be less so.” 

Glancing at his hands, whj^li were discoloured by his late 


AN OPINION 


291 


work, the Doctor looked troubled, and listened attentively. 
He had already glanced at his hands more than once. 

“Doctor Manette,” said Mr. Lorry, touching him affection¬ 
ately on the arm, “the case is the case of a particularly dear 
friend of mine. Pray give your mind to it, and advise me 
Avell for his sake—and above all, for his daughter’s—his 
daughter’s, my dear Manette.” 

“If I understand,” said the -Doctor, in a subdued tone, 

“some mental shock-?” 

“Yes!” 

“Be explicit,” said the Doctor. “Spare no detail.” 

Mr. Lorry saw that they understood one another, and pro 
ceeded. 

“My dear Manette, it is the case of an old and a pro¬ 
longed shock, of great acuteness and severity to the affec¬ 
tions, the feelings, the—the—as you express it—the mind. 
It is the case of a shock under which the sufferer was borne 
down, one cannot say for how long, because I believe he can¬ 
not calculate the time himself, and there are no other means 
of getting at it. It is the case of a shock from which the 
sufferer recovered, by a process that he cannot trace himself— 
as I once heard him publicly relate in a striking manner. It 
is the case of a shock from which he has recovered, so com¬ 
pletely, as to be a highly intelligent man, capable of close 
application of mind, and great exertion of body, and of con¬ 
stantly making fresh additions to his stock of knowledge, 
which was already very large. But, unfortunately, there has 
been”—he paused and took a deep breath—“a slight re¬ 
lapse.” 

The Doctor, in a low voice, asked, “Of how long duration?” 

“Nine days and nights.” 

“How did it show itself? I infer,” glancing at his hands 


292 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


again, “in the resumption of some old pursuit connected with 
the shock?” 

“That is the fact.” 

“Now, did you ever see him,” asked the Doctor, distinctly 
and collectedly, though in the same low voice, “engaged in 
that pursuit originally?” 

“Once.” 

“And when the relapse fell on him, was he in most respects 
—or in all respects—as he was then?” 

“I think in all respects.” 

“You spoke of his daughter. Does his daughter know of 
the relapse?” 

“No. It has been kept from her, and I hope will always 
be kept from her. It is known only to myself, and to one 
other who may be trusted.” 

The Doctor grasped his hand, and murmured, “That was 
very kind. That was very thoughtful!” Mr. Lorry grasped 
his hand in return, and neither of the two spoke for a little 
while. 

“Now, my dear Manette,” said Mr. Lorry, at length, in 
his most considerate and most affectionate way, “I am a 
mere man of business, and unfit to cope with such intricate 
and difficult matters. I do not possess the kind of infor¬ 
mation necessary; I do not possess the kind of intelligence; 
I want guiding. There is no man in this world on whom I 
could so rely for right guidance, as on you. Tell me, how 
does this relapse come about? Is there danger of another? 
Could a repetition of it be prevented? How should a repe¬ 
tition of it be treated? How does it come about at all? 
What can I do for my friend? No man ever can have been 
more desirous in his heart to serve a friend, than I am to 
serve mine, if I knew how. But I don’t know how to origi¬ 
nate, in such a case. If your sagacity, knowledge, and ex- 


AN OPINION 


293 


perience could put me on the right track, I might be able 
to do so much; unenlightened and undirected, I can do so 
little. Pray discuss it with me; pray enable me to see it a 
little more clearly, and teach me how to be a little more 
useful.” 

Doctor Manette sat meditating after these earnest words 
were spoken, and Mr. Lorry did not press him. 

“I think it probable,” said the Doctor, breaking silence 
with an effort, “that the relapse you have described, my dear 
friend, was not quite unforeseen by its subject.” 

“Was it dreaded by him?” Mr. Lorry ventured to ask. 

“Very much.” He said it with an involuntary shudder. 

“You have no idea how such an apprehension weighs on 
the sufferers mind, and how difficult—how almost impossible 
—it is, for him to force himself to utter a word upon the topic 
that oppresses him.” 

“Would he,” asked Mr. Lorry, “be sensibly relieved if he 
could prevail upon himself to impart that secret brooding to 
any one, when it is on him?” 

“I think so. But it is, as I have told you, next to impossi¬ 
ble. I even believe it—in some cases—to be quite im¬ 
possible.” 

“Now,” said Mr. Lorry, gently laying his hand on the 
Doctor’s arm again, after a short silence on both sides, “to 
what would you refer this attack?” 

“I believe,” returned Doctor Manette,“that there had been 
a strong and extraordinary revival of the train of thought 
and remembrance that was the first cause of the malady. 
Some intense associations of a most distressing nature were 
vividly recalled, I think. It is probable that there had long 
been a dread lurking in his mind, that those associations 
would be recalled—say, under certain circumstances—say, on 
a particular occasion. He tried to prepare himself in vain . 


294 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


perhaps the effort to prepare himself made him less able to 
bear it.” 

“Would he remember what took place in the relapse?” 
asked Mr, Lorry, with natural hesitation. 

The Doctor looked desolately round the room, shook his 
head, and answered, in a low voice, ‘Not at all.” 

“Now, as to the future,” hinted Mr. Lorry. 

“As to the future,” said the Doctor, recovering firmness, 
“I should have great hope. As it pleased Heaven in its mercy 
to restore him so soon, I should have great hope. He, yield¬ 
ing under the pressure of a complicated something, long 
dreaded and long vaguely foreseen and contended against^ 
and recovering after the cloud had burst and passed, I should 
hope that the worst was over.” 

“Well, well! That’s good comfort. I am thankful!” said 
Mr. Lorry. 

“I am thankful!” repeated the Doctor, bending his head 
with reverence. 

“There are two other points,” said Mr. Lorry, “on which 
1 am anxious to be instructed. I may go on?” 

“You cannot do your friend a better service.” The Doctor 
gave him his hand. 

“To the first, then. He is of a studious habit, and unusual¬ 
ly energetic; he applies himself with great ardour to the 
acquisition of professional knowledge, to the conducting of 
experiments, to many things. Now, does he do too much?” 

“I think not. It may be the character of his mind, to be 
always in singular need of occupation. That may be, in part, 
natural to it; in part, the result of affliction. The less it was 
occupied with healthy things, the more it would be in danger 
of turning in the unhealthy direction. He may have ob¬ 
served himself, and made the discovery.” 

“You are sure that he is not under too great a strain?” 


AN OPINION 


? 9 £ 


“I think I am quite sure of it” 

“My dear Manette, if he were overworked now-” 

“My dear Lorry, I doubt if that could easily be. There 
has been a violent stress in one direction, and it needs a coun¬ 
terweight.” 

“Excuse me, as a persistent man of business. Assuming 
for a moment, that he was overworked: it would show 7 itself 
in some renewal of this disorder?” 

“I do not think so. I do not think,” said Doctor Manette 
with the firmness of self-conviction, “that anything but the 
one train of association would renew it. T think that, hence¬ 
forth, nothing but some extraordinary jarring of that chord 
x could renew it. After w T hat has happened, and after his 
recovery, I find it difficult to imagine any such violent sound¬ 
ing of that string again. I trust, and I almost believe, that 
the circumstances likely to renew it are exhausted.” 

He spoke with the diffidence of a man*who knew 7 how slight 
a thing w T ould overset the delicate organisation of the mind, 
and yet with the confidence of a man w r ho had slowly won his 
assurance out of personal endurance and distress. It w r as not 
for his friend to abate that confidence. He professed him¬ 
self more relieved and encouraged than he really was, and 
approached his second and last point. He felt it to be the 
most difficult of all; but, remembering his old Sunday morn¬ 
ing conversation w T ith Miss Pross, and remembering what he 
had seen in the last nine days, he knew 7 that he must face it. 

“The occupation resumed under the influence of this pass¬ 
ing affliction so happily recovered from,” said Mr. Lorry, 
clearing his throat, “we will call—Blacksmith’s work, Black¬ 
smith’s work. We will say, to put a case and for the sake of 
illustration, that he had been used, in his bad time, to work at 
a little forge. We will say that he w T as unexpectedly ‘bund at 


296 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


his forge again. Is it not a pity that he should keep it by 
him?” 

The Doctor shaded his forehead with his hand, and beat his 
foot nervously on the ground. 

“He has always kept it by him,” said Mr. Lorry, with an 
anxious look at his friend. “Now, would it not be better that 
he should let it go?” 

Still, the Doctor, with shaded forehead, beat his foot ner¬ 
vously on the ground. n 

“You do not find it easy to advise me?” said Mr. Lorry. 
“I quite understand it to be a nice question. And yet I 
think-” And there he shook his head, and stopped. 

“You see,” said Doctor Manette, turning to him after an 
uneasy pause, “it is very hard to explain, consistently, the 
innermost workings of this poor man’s mind. He once 
yearned so frightfully for that occupation, and it was so wel¬ 
come when it came; no doubt it relieved his pain so much, by 
substituting the perplexity of the fingers for the perplexity of 
the brain, and bv substituting, as he became more practised, 
the ingenuity of the hands, for the ingenuity of the mental 
torture; that he has never been able to bear the thought of 
putting it quite out of his reach. Even now, when I believe 
he is more hopeful of himself than he has ever been, and even 
speaks of himself with a kind of confidence, the idea that he 
might need that old employment, and not find it, gives him a 
sudden sense of terror, like that which one may fancy strikes 
to the heart of a lost child.” 

He looked like his illustration, as he raised his eyes to Mr. 
Lorry’s face. 

“But may not—mind! I ask for information, as a plodding 
man of business who only deals with such material objects as 
guineas, shillings, and bank-notes—may not the retention of 
the thing involve the retention of the idea? If the thing were 


AN OPINION 


297 


gone, my dear Manette, might not the fear go with it? In 
short, is it not a concession to the misgiving, to keep the 
forge ?” 

There was another silence. 

‘You see, too,” said the Doctor, tremulously, “it is such 
an old companion 

“I would not keep it,” said Mr. Lorry, shaking his head 
for he gained in firmness as he saw the Doctor disquieted. 
“I would recommend him to sacrifice it. I only want vour 
authority. I am sure it does no good. Come! Give me 
your authority, like a dear good man. For his daughter’s 
sake, my dear Manette!” 

Very strange to see what a struggle there was within him! 

“In her name, then, let it be done; I sanction it. But I 
would not, take it away while he was present. Let it be 
removed when he is not there; let him miss his old com- 
panion after an absence.” 

Mr. Lorry readily engaged for/that, and the conference was 
ended. They passed the day in the country, and the Doctor 
was quite restored. On the three following days he remained 
perfectly well, and on the fourteenth day he went away to 
join Lucie and her husband. The precaution that had been 
taken to account for his silence, Mr. Lorry had previously 
explained to him, and he had written to Lucie in accordance 
with it, and she had no suspicions. 

On the night of the day on which he left the house, Mr. 
Lorry went into his room with a chopper, saw, chisel, and 
hammer, attended by Miss Pross carrying a light. There 
with closed doors, and in a mysterious and guilty manner, 
Mr. Lorry hacked the shoemaker’s bench to pieces, while 
Miss Pross held the candle as if she were assisting at a murder 
—for which, indeed, in her grimness, she was no unsuitable 
figure. The burning of the body (previously reduced to 


1298 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


pieces convenient for the purpose) was commenced without 
delay in the kitchen fire; and the tools, shoes, and leather 
were buried in the garden. So wicked do destruction and 
secrecy appear to honest minds, that Mr. Lorry and Miss 
Pross, while engaged in the commission of their deed and in 
the removal of its traces, almost felt, and almost looked, like 
accomplices in a horrible crime. 


CHAPTER XX. 


A PLEA 

When the newly-married pair came home, the first person 
who appeared, to offer his congratulations, was Sydney Car¬ 
ton. They had not been at home many hours, when he pre¬ 
sented himself. He was not improved in habits, or in looks, 
or in manner; but there was a certain rugged air of fidelity 
about him, which was new to the observation of Charles 
Darnay. 

He watched his opportunity of taking Darnay aside into a 
window, and of speaking to him when no one overheard. 

“Mr. Darnay,” said Carton, “I wish we might be friends.” 

“We are already friends, I hope.” 

“You are good enough to say so, as a fashion of speech; 
but, I don’t mean any fashion of speech. Indeed, when I say 
I wish we might be friends, I scarcely mean quite that, 
either.” 

Charles Darnay—as w T as natural—asked him, in all good? 
humour and good-fellowship, what he did mean? 

“Upon my life,” said Carton, smiling, “I find that easier 
to comprehend in my own mind, than to convey to yours. 
However, let me try. You remember a certain famous occa¬ 
sion when I was more drunk than—than usual?” 

“I remember a certain famous occasion when you forced 
me to confess that you had been drinking.” 

“I remember it too. The curse of those occasions is heavy 
upon me, for I always remember them. I hope it may be 
taken into account one day, when all days are at an end for 
me! Don’t be alarmed: I am not going to preach.” 


300 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“I am not at all alarmed. Earnestness in you is anything 
but alarming to me.” 

“Ah!” said Carton, with a careless wave of his hand, as if 
he waved that away. “On the drunken occasion in question 
(one of a large number, as you know), I was insufferable about 
liking you, and not liking you. I wish you would forget it.” 

“I forgot it long ago.” 

“Fashion of speech again! But, Mr. Darnay, oblivion is 
not so easy to me, as you represent it to be to you. I have 
by no means forgotten it, and a light answer does not help me 
to forget it.” 

“If it was a light answer,” returned Darnay, “I beg your 
forgiveness for it. I had no other object than to turn a slight 
thing, which, to my surprise, seems to trouble you too much, 
aside. I declare to you, on the faith of a gentleman, that I 
have long dismissed it from my mind. Good Heaven, what 
was there to dismiss! Have I had nothing more important 
to remember, in the great service you rendered me that day?” 

“As to the great service,” said Carton, “I am bound to 
avow to you, when you speak of it in that way, that it was 
mere professional claptrap. I don’t know that I cared what 
became of you, when I rendered it.—Mind! I say when I 
rendered it; I am speaking of the past.” 

“You make light of the obligation,” returned Darnay, “but 
I will not quarrel with your light answer.” 

“Genuine truth, Mr. Darnay, trust mef I have gone aside 
from my purpose; I was speaking about our being friends. 
Now, you know me; you know I am incapable of all the higher 
and better flights of men. If you doubt it, ask Stryver, and 
he’ll tell you so.” 

“I prefer to form my own opinion, without the aid of his.” 

“Well! At any rate you know me as a dissolute dog, who 
has never done any good, and never will.” 


A PLEA 


301 


“I don’t know that you ‘never will/” 

'‘But I do, and you must take my word for it. Well! If 
you could endure to have such a worthless fellow, and a fellow 
of such indifferent reputation, coming and going at odd times, 
I should ask that I might be permitted to come and go as a 
privileged person here; that I might be regarded as an useless 
(and I would add, if it were not for the resemblance I detected 
between you and me), an unornamental, piece of furniture, 
tolerated for its old service, and taken no notice of. I doubt 
if I should abuse the permission. It is a hundred to one if 
I should avail myself of it four times in a year. It would 
satisfy me, I dare say, to know that I had it.” 

“Will you try?” 

“That is another way of saying that I am placed on the 
footing I have indicated. I thank you, Darnay. I may use 
that freedom with your name?” 

“I think so, Carton, by this time.” 

They shook hands upon it, and Sydney turned away. 
Within a minute afterwards, he was, to all outward appear¬ 
ance, as unsubstantial as ever. 

When he was gone, and in the course of an evening passed 
with Miss Pross, the Doctor, and Mr. Lorry, Charles Darnay 
made some mention of this conversation in general terms, 
and spoke of Sydney Carton as a problem of carelessness and 
recklessness. He spoke of him, in short, not bitterly or 
meaning to bear hard upon him, but as anybody might who 
saw him as he showed himself. 

He had no idea that this could dwell in the thoughts of 
nis fair young wife; but, when he afterwards joined her in 
their own rooms, he found her waiting for him with the old 
pretty lifting of the forehead strongly marked. 

“We are thoughtful to-night!” said Darnay, drawing his 
arm about her. 



302 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“Yes, dearest Charles,” with her hands on his breast, and 
the inquiring and attentive expression fixed upon him; “we 
are rather thoughtful to-night, for we have something on 
our mind to-night.” 

“What is it, my Lucie?” 

“Will you promise not to press one question on me, if I beg 
you not to ask it?” 

“Will I promise? What will I not promise to my Love?” 

What, indeed, with his hand putting aside the golden hair 
from the cheek, and his other hand against the heart that beat 
for him! 

“I think, Charles, poor Mr. Carton deserves more considera¬ 
tion and respect than you expressed for him to-night.” 

“Indeed, my own? Why so?” 

“That is what you are not to ask me. -But I think—I 
know—he does.” 

“If you know it, it is enough. What would you have me 
do, my Life?” 

“I would ask you, dearest, to be very generous with him 
always, and very lenient on his faults when he is not by. I 
would ask you to believe that he has a heart he very, very 
seldom reveals, and that there are deep wounds in it. My 
dear, I have seen it bleeding.” 

“It is a painful reflection to me,” said Charles Darriay, 
quite astounded, “that I should have done him any wrong. I 
never thought this of him.” 

“My husband, it is so. I fear he is not to be reclaimed; 
there is scarcely a hope that anything in his character or 
fortunes is reparable now. But, I am sure that he is capable 
of good things, gentle things, even magnanimous things.” 

She looked so beautiful in the purity of her faith in this lost 
man, that her husband could have looked at her as she was 
for hours. 


A PLEA 


303 


And, O my dearest Love!” she urged, clinging nearer to 
him, laying her head upon his breast, and raising her eyes to 
his, “remember how strong we are in our happiness, and how 
weak he is in his misery!” 

The supplication touched him home. “I will always re¬ 
member it > dear Heart! I will remember it as long as I 
live.” 

He bent over the golden head, and put the rosy lips to his, 
and folded her in his arms. If one forlorn wanderer then 
pacing the dark streets, could have heard her innocent dis¬ 
closure, and could have seen the drops of pity kissed away 
by her husband from the soft blue eyes so loving of that 
husband, he might have cried to the night—and the words 
would not have parted from his lips for the first time—“God 
bless her for her sweet compassion!” 



CHAPTER XXL 


ECHOING FOOTSTEPS 

A wonderful comer for echoes, it has been remarked, 
that corner where the Doctor lived. Ever busily winding the 
golden thread which bound her husband, and her father, and 
herself, and her old directress and companion, in a life of 
quiet bliss, Lucie sat in the still house in the tranquilly re¬ 
sounding corner, listening to the echoing footsteps of years. 

At first, there were times, though she was a perfectly happy 
young wife, when her work would slowly fall from her hands, 
and her eyes would be dimmed. For, there was something 
coming in the echoes, something light, afar off, and scarcely 
audible yet, that stirred her heart too much. Fluttering 
hopes and doubts—hope, of a love as yet unknown to her; 
doubts, of her remaining upon earth, to enjoy that new de¬ 
light-divided her breast. Among the echoes then, there 
would arise the sound of footsteps at her own early grave; and 
thoughts of the husband > who would be left so desolate, and 
who would mourn for her so much, swelled to her eyes, and 
broke like waves. 

That time passed, and her little Lucie lay on her bosom. 
Then, among the advancing echoes, there was the tread of 
her tiny feet and the sound of her prattling words. Let 
greater echoes resound as they w r ould, the young mother at 
the cradle side could always hear those coming. They came, 
and the shady house was sunny with a child’s laugh, and the 
Divine friend of children, to whom in her trouble she had 
confided hers, seemed to take her child in His arms, as He 
took the child of old, and made it a sacred joy to her. 


ECHOING FOOTSTEPS 


305 


Ever busily winding the golden thread that bound them all 
together, weaving the service of her happy influences through 
the tissue of all their lives, and making it predominate no¬ 
where, Lucie heard in the echoes of years none but friendly 
and soothing sounds. Her husband’s step was strong and 
prosperous among them; her father’s firm and equal. Lo, 
Miss Pross, in a harness of string, awakening the echoes, as an 
unruly charger, whip-corrected, snorting and pawing the 
earth under the plane-tree in the garden! 

Even w T hen there were sounds of sorrow among the rest 
they were not harsh nor cruel. Even when golden hair, like 
her owm, lay in a halo on a pillow round the worn face of a 
little boy, and he said, with a radiant smile, “Dear papa and 
mamma, I am very sorry to leave you both, and to leave my 
pretty sister; but I am called, and I must go!” those were not 
tears all of agony that wetted his young mother’s cheek, as 
the spirit departed from her embrace that had been entrusted 
to it. Suffer them and forbid them not. They see my 
Father’s face. O Father, blessed words! 

Thus, the rustling of an Angel’s wdngs got blended with the 
other echoes, and they w T ere not w T holly of earth, but had 
in them that breath of Heaven. Sighs of the winds that blew 
over a little garden-tomb w r ere mingled w T ith them also, and 
both were audible to Lucie, in a hushed murmur—like the 
breathing of a summer sea asleep upon a sandy shore—as the 
little Lucie, comically studious at the task of the morning, 
or dressing a doll at her mother’s footstool, chattered in the 
tongues of the Two Cities that w T ere blended in her life. 

The echoes rarely answered to the actual tread of Sydney 
Carton. Some half-dozen times a year, at most, he claimed his 
privilege of coming in uninvited, and would sit among them 
through the evening, as he had once done often. He never 
came there heated with wine. And one other thing regarding 


306 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


him was whispered in the echoes, which has been whispered 
by all true echoes for ages and ages. 

No man ever really loved a woman, lost her, and knew her 
with a blameless though an unchanged mind, when she was 
a wife and a mother, but her children had a strange sympathy 
with him—an instinctive delicacy of pity for him. What fine 
hidden sensibilities are touched in such a case, no echoes teli; 
but it is so, and it was so here. Carton was the first stranger 
co whom little Lucie held out her chubby arms, and he kept 
his nlace with her as she grew. The little boy had spoken 
of him, almost at the last. “Poor Carton! Kiss him for me! 

Mr. Stryver shouldered his way through the law, like some 
great engine forcing itself through turbid water, and dragged 
his useful friend in his wake, like a boat towed astern. As 
the boat so favoured is usually in a rough plight, and mostly 
under water, so, Sydney had a swamped life of it. But, eas^ 
and strong custom, unhappily so much easier and stronger in 
him than any stimulating sense of desert or disgrace, made it 
the life he was to lead; and he no more thought of emerging 
from his state of lion’s jackal, than any real jackal may be 
supposed to think of rising to be a lion, fetryver was rich; 
had married a florid widow with property and three boys, who 
had nothing particularly shining about them but the straight 
hair of their dumpling heads. 

These three young gentlemen, Mr. Stryver, exuding patron¬ 
age of the most offensive quality from every pore, had walked 
before him like three sheep to the quiet corner in Soho > and 
had offered as pupils to Lucie’s husband: delicately saying, 
“Halloa! here are three lumps of bread-and-cheese towards 
your matrimonial picnic, Darnay!” The polite rejection of 
the three lumps of bread-and-cheese had quite bloated Mr. 
Stryver with indignation, which he afterwards turned to 
account in the training of the young gentlemen, by directing 


ECHOING FOOTSTEPS 


307 


.them to beware of the pride of Beggars, like that tutor-fellow. 
He was also in the habit of declaiming to Mrs. Stryver, over 
his full-bodied wine, on the arts Mrs. Darnay had once put 
in practice to “catch” him, and on the diamond-cut-diamond 
arts in himself, madam, which had rendered him “not to be 
caught.” Some of his King’s Bench familiars, who were occa¬ 
sionally parties to the full-bodied wine and the lie, excused 
him for the latter by saying that he had told it so often, that 
he believed it himself—which is surely such an incorrigible 
aggravation of an originally bad offence, as to justify any 
such offender’s being carried off to some suitably retired spot, 
and there hanged out of the way. 

These were among the echoes to which Lucie, sometimes 
pensive, sometimes amused and laughing, listened in the 
echoing corner, until her little daughter was six years old. 
How near to her heart the echoes of her child’s tread came, 
and those of her own dear father’s, always active and self- 
possessed, and those of her dear husband’s, need not be told. 
Nor, how the lightest echo of their united home, directed by 
t*er«elf with such a wise and elegant thrift that it was more 
Abundant than any waste, was music to her. Nor, how there 
were echoes ail about her, sweet in her ears, of the many times 
her father had told her that he found her more devoted to him 
married (if that could be) than single, and of the many times 
her husband had said to her that no cares and duties seemed 
to divide her love for him or her help to him, and asked her 
“What is the magic secret, my darling, of your being every¬ 
thing to all of us, as if there were only one of us, yet never 
seeming to be hurried, or to have too much to do?” 

But, there were other echoes, from a distance, that rumbled 
menacingly in the corner all through this space of time. And 
it was now, about little Lucie’s sixth birthday, that they 


308 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


began to have an awful sound, as of a great storm in France 
with a dreadful sea rising. 

On a night in mid-July, one thousand seven hundred and 
eighty-nine, Mr. Lorry came in late, from Tellson’s, and sat 
himself down by Lucie and her husband in the dark window. 
It was a hot, wild night, and they were all three reminded of 
the old Sunday night when they had looked at the lightning 
from the same place. 

“I began to think,” said Mr. Lorry, pushing his brown 
wig back, “that I should have to pass the night at Tellson’s. 
We have been so full of business all day, that we have not 
known what to do first, or which way to turn. There is such 
an uneasiness in Paris, that we have actually a run of con¬ 
fidence upon us! Our customers over there, seem not to be 
able to confide their property to us fast enough. There is 
positively a mania among some of them for sending it to 
England.” 

“That has a bad look,” said Darnay. 

“A bad look, you say, my dear Darnay? Yes, but we don’t 
know what reason there is in it. People are so unreasonable! 
Some of us at Tellson’s are getting old, and we really can’t be 
troubled out of the ordinary course without due occasion. 

“Still,” said Darnay, “you knowhow gloomy and threaten- 
• ing the sky is.” 

“I know that, to be sure,” assented Mr. Lorry, trying to 
persuade himself that his sweet temper was soured, and that 
he grumbled, “but I am determined to be peevish after my 
long day’s botheration. Where isManette? 

“Here he is,” said the Doctor, entering the dark room at 
the moment. 

“I am quite glad you are at home; for these hurries and 
forebodings by which I have been surrounded all day long 



ECHOING FOOTSTEPS 


309 


have made me nervous without reason. You are not going 
out, I hope?” 

“No; I am going to play backgammon with you, if you 
like,” said the Doctor. 

“I don’t think I do like, if I may speak my mind. I am 
not fit to be pitted against you to-night. Is the tea-board 
still there, Lucie? - I can’t see.” 

“Of course, it has been kept for you.” 

“Thank ye, my dear. The precious child is safe in bed?” 

“And sleeping soundly.” 

“That’s right; all safe and well! I don’t know why any¬ 
thing should be otherwise than safe and well here, thank God; 
but I have been so put out all day, and I am not as young as 
I was! My tea, my dear! Thank ye. Now, come and take 
your place in the circle, and let us sit quiet, and hear the 
echoes about which you have your theory.” 

“Not a theory; it was a fancy.” 

“A fancy, then, my wise pet,” said Mr. Lorry, patting her 
hand. “They are very numerous and very loud, though, are 
they not? Only hear them!” 

Headlong, mad, and dangerous footsteps to force their way 
into anybody’s life, footsteps not easily made clean again if 
once stained red, the footsteps raging in Saint Antoine afar 
off, as the little circle sat in the dark London window. 

Saint Antoine had been, that morning, a vast dusky mass 
of scarecrows heaving to and fro, with frequent gleams of 
light above fe billowy heads, where steel blades and bay¬ 
onets shone in the sun. A tremendous roar arose from the 
throat of Saint Antoine, and a forest of naked arms strug¬ 
gled in the air like shrivelled branches of trees in a winter 
wind: all the fingers convulsively clutching at every weapon 
or semblance of a weapon that was thrown up from the depths 
below, no matter how far off. 




310 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Who gave them out, whence they last came, where they 
began, through what agency 1 they crookedly quivered and :j 
jerked, scores at a time, over the heads of the crowd, like a 
kind of lightning, no eye in the throng could have told; but, 
muskets were being distributed—so were cartridges, powder, 
and ball, bars of iron and wood, knives, axes, pikes, every 
weapon that distracted ingenuity could discover or devise. 
People who could lay hold of nothing else, set themselves with 
bleeding hands to force stones and bricks out of their places 
in walls. Every pulse and heart in Saint Antoine was on 
high-fever strain and at high-fever heat. Every living crea¬ 
ture there held life as of no account, and was demented with 
a passionate readiness to sacrifice it. 

As a whirlpool of boiling waters has a centre point, so, all 
this raging circled round Defarge s wine-shop, and every 
human drop in the caldron had a tendency to be sucked 
towards the vortex where Defarge himself, already begrimed 
with gunpowder and sweat, issued orders, issued arms, thrust 
this man back, dragged this man forward, disarmed one to 
arm another, laboured and strove in the thickest of the 
uproar. 

“Keep near to me, Jacques Three,” cried Defarge; “and 
do you, Jacques One and Two, separate and put yourselves 
at the head of as many of these patriots as you can. Where 
is my wife?” 

“Eh, well! Here you see me!” said madame, composed 
as ever, but not knitting to-day. Madame’s resolute right 
hand was occupied with an axe, in place of the usual softer 
implements, and in her girdle were a pistol and a cruel knife. 

“Where do you go, my wife?” 

i They were found at, the Hotel des Invalides. Read Carlyle, Histr~y of 
the French Revolution , Part I. Book V, Chap. vi. 


ECHOING FOOTSTEPS 


311 


“I go,” said madame, “with you at present. You shall 
see me at the head of women, bv-and-bv.” 1 

“Come, then!” cried Defarge, in a resounding voice. 
“Patriots and friends, we are ready! The Bastille!” 2 

With a roar that sounded as if all the breath in France had 
been shaped into the detested word, the living sea rose, wave 
on wave, depth on depth, and overflowed the city to that 
point. Alarm-bells ringing, drums beating, the sea raging 
and thundering on its new beach, the attack begun. 

Deep ditches, double drawbridge, massive stone walls, 
eight great towers, cannon, muskets, fire and smoke. 
Through the fire and through the smoke—in the fire and in 
the smoke, for the sea cast him up against a cannon, and on 
the instant he became a cannonier—Defarge of the wine¬ 
shop worked like a manful soldier, Two fierce hours. 

Deep ditch, single drawbridge massive stone walls, eight 
great towers, cannon, muskets, fire and smoke. One draw¬ 
bridge down! “Work, comrades all, work! Work, Jacques 
One, Jacques Two, Jacques One Thousand, Jacques Two 
Thousand, Jacques Five-and-Twenty Thousand; in the name 
of all the Angels or the Devils—which you prefer—world” 
Thus Defarge of the wine-shop, still at his gun, which had 
long grown hot. 

“To me, women!” cried madame his wife. “What! We 
can kill as well as the men when the place is taken!” And 
to her, with a shrill thirsty cry, trooping women variously 
armed, but all armed alike in hunger and revenge. 

Cannon, muskets, fire and smoke; but, still the deep ditch, 

1 Read Carlyle, History of the French Revolution , Part I, Book V, Ch'ap. 
■Vi Upon the part women played in the Revolution see The French Revolu¬ 
tion by H. Morse Stephens, Vo'l. II, Chap, x, pp. 358-9. 

2 The Bastille was torn down and its material used in the construction 
of bridges across the Seine. The outlines of the towers, are designated in 
the pavement of the street at the end of the Rue St. Antoine. In the center 
of the square (the Place de la Bastille) stands the Colonne de Juillet, one 
hundred and fifty-four feet high. 


312 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


the single drawbridge, the massive stone walls, and the eight, 
great towers. Slight displacements of the raging sea, made 
by the falling wounded. Flashing weapons, blazing torches, 1 
smoking waggon-loads of wet straw, hard work at neighbour¬ 
ing barricades in all directions, shrieks, volleys, execrations, 
bravery without stint, boom, smash, and rattle, and the furi¬ 
ous sounding of the living sea; but, still the deep ditch, and 
the single drawbridge, and the massive stone walls, and the 
eight great towers, and still Defarge of the wine-shop at his 
gun, grown doubly hot by the service of Four fierce hours. 

A white flag from within the fortress, and a parley this 
dimly perceptible through the raging storm, nothing audible 
in it—suddenly the sea rose immeasurably wider and higher, 
and swept Defarge of the wine-shop over the lowered draw¬ 
bridge, past the massive stone outer walls, in among the 
eight great towers surrendered! 

So resistless was the force of the ocean bearing him on, 
that even to draw his breath or turn his head was as im¬ 
practicable as if he had been struggling in the surf at the 
South Sea, until he was landed in the outer court-yard of the 
Bastille. There, against an angle of a wall, he made a 
struggle to look about him. Jacques Three was nearly at his 
side; Madame Defarge, still heading some of her women, was 
visible in the inner distance, and her knife was in her hand. 
Everywhere was tumult, exultation, deafening and maniacal 
bewilderment, astounding noise, yet furious dumb-show. 

“The Prisoners!” 

“The Records!” 

“The secret cells!” 

'“The instruments of torture!” 

“The Prisoners!” 

Of all these cries, and ten thousand incoherencies, “The 
Prisoners!” was the cry most taken up by the sea that rushed 




ECHOING FOOTSTEPS 


313 


in, as if there were an eternity of people, as well as of time and 
space. When the foremost billows rolled past, bearing the 
prison officers with them, and threatening them all with 
instant death if any secret nook remained undisclosed, De- 
farge laid his strong hand on the breast of one of these men— 
i a man with a grey head, who had a lighted torch in his hand—- 
separated him from the rest, and got him between himself and 
the wall. 

“Show me the North Tower!” said Defarge. “Quick!” 

“I will faithfully,” replied the man, “if you will come with 
me. But there is no one there.” 

“What is the meaning of One Hundred and Five, North 
Tower?” asked Defarge. “Quick!” 

“The meaning, monsieur?” 

“Does it mean a captive, or a place of captivity? Or do 
you mean that I shall strike you dead?” 

“Kill him!” croaked Jacques Three, who had come close up. 

“Monsieur, it is a cell.” 

“Show it me!” 

“Pass this way, then.” 

Jacques Three, with his usual craving on him, and evidently 
disappointed by the dialogue taking a turn that did not seem 
to promise bloodshed, held by Defarge’s arm as he held by 
the turnkey’s. Their three heads had been close together 
during this brief discourse, and it had been as much as they 
could do to hear one another, even then: so tremendous was 
the noise of the living ocean, in its irruption into the Fortress, 
and its inundation of the courts and passages and staircases. 
All around outside, too, it beat the walls with a deep, hoarse 
roar, from which, occasionally, some partial shouts of tumult 
broke and leaped into the air like spray. 

Through gloomy vaults where the light of day had never 
shone, past hideous doors of dark dens and cages, down 



814 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


cavernous flights of steps, and again up steep rugged ascents 
of stone and brick, more like dry waterfalls than staircases, 
Detarge, the turnkey, and Jacques Three, linked hand and 
arm, went with all the speed they could make. Here and 
there, especially at first, the inundation started on them 
and swept by; but when they had done descending, and were 
winding and climbing up a tower, they were alone. Hemmed 
in here by the massive thickness of walls and arches, the 
storm within the fortress and without was only audible to 
them in a dull, subdued way, as if the noise out of which they 
had come had almost destroyed their sense of hearing. 

The turnkey stopped at a low door, put a key in a clashing 
lock, swung the door slowly open, and said, as they all bent 
their heads and passed in: 

“One hundred and five, North Tower!” 

There was a small, heavily-grated, unglazed window high 
in the wall, with a stone screen before it, so that the sky could 
be only seen by stooping low and looking up. There was a 
small chimney, heavily barred across, a few feet within. 
There was a heap of old feathery wood-ashes on the hearth. 
There was a stool, and table, and a straw bed. There were 
the four blackened walls, and a rusted iron ring in one of 
them. 

‘Tass that torch slowly along these walls, that I may see 
them,” said Defarge to the turnkey. 

The man obeyed, and Defarge followed the light closely 
with his eyes. 

“Stop!—Look here, Jacques!” 

“A. M.!” croaked Jacques Three, as he read greedily. 

“Alexandre Manette,” said Defarge in his ear, following 
the letters with his swart forefinger, deeply engrained with 
gunpowder. “And here he wrote ‘a poor physician/ And 
it was he, without doubt, who scratched a calendar on this 


ECHOING FOOTSTEPS 


315 


stone. What is that in your hand? A crowbar? Give it 
me!” 

He had still the linstock of his gun in his own hand. He 
made a sudden exchange of the two instruments, and turning 
on the worm-eaten stool and table, beat them to pieces in a 
few blows. 

“Hold the light higher!” he said, wrathfully, to the turn¬ 
key. “Look among those fragments with care, Jacques. 
And see! Here is my knife,” throwing it to him; “rip open 
that bed, and search the straw. Hold the light higher, you!” 

With a mepacing look at the turnkey he crawled upon the 
hearth, and, peering up the chimney, struck and prised at its 
sides with the crowbar, and worked at the iron grating across 
it. In a few minutes, some mortar and dust came dropping 
down, which he averted his face to avoid; and in it, and in the 
old wood-ashes, and in a crevice in the chimney into which 
his weapon had slipped or wrought itself, he groped with a 
cautious touch. * 

“Nothing in the wood, and nothing in the straw, Jacques?” 

“Nothing.” 

“Let us collect them together, in the middle of the cell, 
So! Light them, you!” 

The turnkey fired the little pile, which blazed high and 
hot. Stooping again to come out at the low-arched door, 
they left it burning, and retraced their way to the court-yard : 
seeming to recover their sense of hearing as they came down, 
until they were in the raging flood once more. 

They found it surging and tossing, in quest of Defarge 
himself. Saint Antoine was clamorous to have its wine-shop 
keeper foremost in the guard upon the governor who had 
defended the Bastille and shot the people. Otherwise, the 
governor would not be marched to the Hotel de Ville for judg¬ 
ment. Otherwise, the governor would escape, and the peo- 




316 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


pie’s blood (suddenly of some value, after many years of 
worthlessness) be unavenged. 

In the howling universe of passion and contention that 
seemed to encompass this grim old officer conspicuous in his 
grey coat and red decoration , 1 there was but one quite steady 
figure, and that was a woman’s. “See, there is my husband!” 
she cried, pointing him out. “See Defarge!” She stood 
immovable close to the grim old officer, and remained im¬ 
movable close to him; remained immovable close to him 
through the streets, as Defarge and the rest bore him along; 
remained immovable close to him when he was got near his 
destination, and began to be struck at from behind; remained 
immovable close to him when the long-gathering rain of stabs 
and blows fell heavy; was so close to him when he dropped dead 
under it, that, suddenly animated, she put her foot upon his 
neck, and with her cruel knife—long ready—hewed off his head. 

The hour was come, when Saint Antoine was to execute 
his horrible idea of hoisting up men for lamps to show what 
he could be and do. Saint Antoine’s blood was up, and the 
blood of tyranny and domination by the iron hand was down 
—down on the steps of the Hotel de Ville where the governor’s 
body lay—down on the sole of the shoe of Madame Defarge 
where she had trodden on the body to steady it for mutilation. 
“Lower the lamp yonder!” cried Saint Antoine, after glaring 
round for a new means of death; “here is one of his soldiers 
to be left on guard!” The swinging sentinel 2 was posted, and 
the sea rushed on. 

The sea of black and threatening waters, and of destructive 
upheaving of wave against wave, whose depths were yet un- 

1 Taken from Carlyle, History of the 'French Revolution , Part I, Book V, 
Chap, vi, where De Launay is described as wearing “a gray frock with 
P^PPy - coloured ribbon.” 

2 From Carlyle, History of the French Revolution , Part, I Book V, Chap, 
p. 234 


ECHOING FOOTSTEPS 


317 


fathomed and whose forces were yet unknown. The re¬ 
morseless sea of turbulently swaying shapes, voices of ven¬ 
geance, and faces hardened in the furnaces of suffering until 
the touch of pity could make no mark on them. 

But, in the ocean of faces where every fierce and furious 
expression was in vivid life, there were two groups of faces— 
each seven in number—so fixedly contrasting with the rest, 
that never did sea roll which bore more memorable wrecks 
with it. Seven faces of prisoners, suddenly released by the 
storm that had burst their tomb, were carried high overhead: 
all scared, all lost, all wondering and amazed, as if the Last 
Day were come, and those who rejoiced around them were 
lost spirits. Other seven faces there were, carried higher, 
seven dead faces, whose drooping eyelids and half-seen eyes 
awaited the Last Day . 1 Impassive faces, yet with a suspended 
—not an abolished—expression on them; faces, rather, in a 
fearful pause, as having yet to raise the dropped lids of 
the eyes, and bear witness with the bloodless lips, “Thou 
didst it!” 

Seven prisoners released, seven gory heads on pikes, the 
keys of the accursed fortress of the eight strong towers, some 
discovered letters 2 and other memorials of prisoners of old 
time, long dead of broken hearts,—such, and such-like, the 
loudly echoing footsteps of Saint Antoine escort through the 
Paris streets in mid-July, one thousand seven hundred and 
eighty-nine. Now, Heaven defeat the fancy of Lucie Darnay, 
and keep these feet far out of her life! For, they are head¬ 
long, mad, and dangerous; and in the years so long after the 
breaking of the cask at Defarge’s wine-shop door, they are 

not easily purified when once stained red. 

1 See Carlyle, History of the French Revolution. Part I, Book V, Chap. 
vii, p. 235. 

2 See Carlyle, History of the French Revolution, Part I, Book V, Chap. 
vii, p. 236. 


CHAPTER XXII. 

THE SEA STILL RISES 

Haggard Saint Antoine had had only one exultant week, in 
which to soften his modicum of hard and bitter bread to 
such extent as he could, with the relish of fraternal embraces 
and congratulations, when Madame Defarge sat at her 
counter, as usual, presiding over the customers. Madame 
Defarge wore no rose in her head, for the great brotherhood 
of Spies had become, even in one short week, extremely 
chary of trusting themselves to the saint’s mercies. The 
lamps across his streets had a portentously elastic swing 
with them. 

Madame Defarge, with her arms folded, sat in the morn¬ 
ing light and heat, contemplating the wine-shop and the 
street. In both, there were several knots of loungers, 
squalid and miserable, but now with a manifest sense of 
power enthroned on their distress. The raggedest night¬ 
cap, awry on the wretchedest head, had this crooked sig¬ 
nificance in it: “I know how hard it has grown for me, the 
wearer of this, to support life in myself; but do you know 
how easy it has grown for me, the wearer of this, to destroy 
life in you?” Every lean bare arm, that had been without 
work before, had this work always ready for it now, that 
it could strike. The fingers of the knitting women were 
vicious, with the experience that they could tear. There 
was a change in the appearance of Saint Antoine; the image 
had been hammering into this for hundreds of years, and the 
last finishing blows had told mightily on the expression. 

Madame Defarge sat observing it, with such suppressed 
818 


THE SEA STILL RISES 


319 


approval as was to be desired in the leader of the Saint 
Antoine women. One of her sisterhood knitted beside her. 
The short, rather plump wife of a starved grocer, and the 
mother of two children withal, this lieutenant had already 
earned the complimentary name of The Vengeance. 

“Hark!” said The Vengeance. “Listen, then! Who 
comes?” 

As if a train of powder laid from the outermost bound of 
the Saint Antoine Quarter to the wine-shop door, had been 
suddenly fired, a fast-spreading murmur came rushing along. 

“It is Defarge,” said madame. “Silence, patriots!” 

Defarge came in breathless, pulled off a red cap he wore, 
and looked around him! “Listen, everywhere!” said mad¬ 
ame again. “Listen to him!” Defarge stood, panting, 
against a background of eager eyes and open mouths, formed 
outside the door; all those within the wine-shop had sprung 
to their feet. 

“Say then, my husband. Wnat is it?” 

“News from the other world!” 

“How, then?” cried madame, contemptuously. “The other 
world?” 

“Does everybody here recall old Foul on, who told the 
famished people that they might eat grass, and who died, 
and went to Hell?” 

“Everybody!” from all throats. 

“The news is of him. He is among us!” 

“Among us!” from the universal throat again. “And 
dead?” 

“Not dead! He feared us so much—and with reason— 
that he caused himself to be represented as dead, and had a 
grand mock-funeral. But they have found him alive, 
hiding in the country, and have brought him in. I have 
seen him but now, on his way to the Hotel de Ville, a prisoner. 


320 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


I have said that he had reason to fear us. Say all! Had 
he reason?” 

Wretched old sinner of more than threescore years and ten, 
if he had never known it yet, he would have known it in his 
heart of hearts if he could have heard the answering cry. 

A moment of profound silence followed. Defarge and his 
wife looked steadfastly at one another. The Vengeance 
stooped, and the jar of a drum was heard as she moved it at 
her feet behind the counter. 

“Patriots!” said Defargejn a determined voice, “are we 

ready?” . 

Instantly Madame Defarge s knife was in her girdle; the 

drum was beating in the streets, as if it and a drummer had 
flown together by magic; and The Vengeance, uttering 
terrific shrieks, and flinging her arms about her head like all 
the forty Furies at once, was tearing from house to house, 
rousing the women. 

The men were terrible, in the bloody-minded anger with 
which they looked from windows, caught up what arms they 
had and came pouring down into the streets; but, the 
women were a sight to chill the boldest. From such house- 
hold occupations as their bare poverty yielded, from their 
children, from their aged and their sick crouching on the 
bare ground famished and naked, they ran out with stream¬ 
ing hair, urging one another and themselves, to madness 
with the wildest cries and actions. Villain Foulon taken, 
my sister! Old Foulon taken, my mother! Miscreant 
Foulon taken, my daughter! Then a score of others ran 
into the midst of these, beating their breasts, tearing their 
hair, and screaming, Foulon alive! Foulon who told the 
starving people they might eat grass! Foulon who told 
my old father he might eat grass, when I had no bread 
to give him! Foulon who told my baby it might suck 



THE SEA STILL RISES 


321 


grass, when these breasts were dry with want! O mother 
of God, this Foulon! O Heaven, our suffering! Hear me ; 
my dead baby and my withered father: I swear on my knees, 
on these stones, to avenge you on Foulon! Husbands and 
brothers, and young men, Give us the blood of Foulon, 
Give us the head of Foulon, Give us the heart of Foulon, 
Give us the body and soul of Foulon, Rend Foulon to pieces, 
and dig him into the ground, that grass may grow from him! 
With these cries, numbers of the women, lashed into blind 
I frenzy, whirled about, striking and tearing at their own 
j friends until they dropped into a passionate swoon, and 
were only saved by the men belonging to them from being 
trampled under foot. 

Nevertheless, not a moment was lost; not a moment! 
This Foulon 1 was at the Hotel de Ville, and might be loosed. 
Never, if Saint Antoine knew his own sufferings, insults, and 
wrongs! Armed men and women flocked out of the Quarter 
so fast, and drew even these last dregs after them with such 
a force of suction, that within a quarter of an hour there 
was not a human creature in Saint Antoine’s bosom but a 
few old crones and the wailing children. 

No. They were all by that time choking the Hall of 
Examination where this old man, ugly and wicked, was, and 
overflowing into the adjacent open space and streets. The 
Defarges, husband and wife, The Vengeance, and Jacques 
Three were in the first press, and at no great distance 
from him in the Hall. 

“See!” cried madame, pointing with her knife. “See the 
old villain bound with ropes. That was well done to tie a 
bunch of grass upon his back. Ha, ha! That was well 

i Taken from Carlyle, History of the French Revolution. See Part I, 
Book V, Chap, ix, pp. 244-6. 




322 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


done. Let him eat it now!” Madame put her knife under 
her arm, and clapped her hands as at a play. 

The people immediately behind Madame Defarge, explain¬ 
ing the cause of her satisfaction to those behind them, and 
those again explaining to others, and those to others, the 
neighboring streets resounded with the clapping of hands. 
Similarly, during two or three hours of drawl, and the 
winnowing of many bushels of words, Madame Defarge’s 
frequent expressions of impatience were taken up, with 
marvellous quickness, at a distance: the more readily, be¬ 
cause certain men who had by some wonderful exercise of 
agility climbed up the external architecture to look in from 
the windows, knew Madame Defarge well, and acted as a 
telegraph between her and the crowd outside the building. 

At length the sun rose so high that it struck a kindly ray 
as of hope or protection, directly down upon the old prison¬ 
er’s head. The favour was too much to bear; in an instant 
the barrier of dust and chaff that had stood surprisingly 
long, went to the winds, and Saint Antoine had got him! 

It was known directly, to the furthest confines of the 
crowd. Defarge had but sprung over a railing and a table 
and folded the miserable wretch in a deadly embrace— 
Madame Defarge had but followed and turned her hand in 
one of the ropes with which he was tied—The Vengeance and 
Jacques Three were not yet up with them, and the men at 
the windows had not yet swooped into the Hall, like birds 
of prey from their high perches—when the cry seemed to go 
up, all over the city, “Bring him out! Bring him to the 
lamp!” 

Down, and up, and head foremost on the steps of the 
building; now, on his knees; now, on his feet; now, on his 
back; dragged, and struck at, and stifled by the bunches of 
grass and straw that were thrust into his face by hundreds^ 



THE SEA STILL RISES 


323 


of hands; torn, bruised, panting, bleeding, yet always en¬ 
treating and beseeching for mercy; now full of vehement 
agony of action, with a small clear space about him as the 
people drew one another back that they might see; now, a 
log of dead wood drawn through a forest of legs; he was 
hauled to the nearest street corner where one of the fatal 
lamps swung, and there Madame Defarge let him go—as a cat 
might have done to a mouse—and silently and composedly 
looked at him while they made ready, and while he besought 
her: the women passionately screeching at him ail the time, 
and the men sternly calling out to have him killed with grass 
in his mouth. Once, he went aloft, and the rope broke, and 
they caught him shrieking; twice he went aloft, and the 
rope broke, and they caught him shrieking; then the rope 
was merciful, and held him, and his head was soon upon a 
pike, with grass enough in the mouth for all Saint Antoine 
to dance at the sight of. 

Nor was this the end of the day’s bad work, for Saint 
Antoine so shouted and danced his angry blood up, that it 
boiled again, on hearing when the day closed in that the 
son-in-law of the despatched , 1 another of the people’s enemies 
and insulters, was coming into Paris under a guard five 
hundred strong in cavalry alone. Saint Antoine wrote his 
crimes on flaring sheets of paper, seized him—would have 
torn him out of the breast of an army to bear Foulon com¬ 
pany-set his head and heart on pikes, and carried the three 
spoils of the day, in Wolf-procession, through the streets. 

Not before dark night did the men and women come back 
to the children wailing and breadless. Then, the miserable 
baker’s shops were beset by long files of them, patiently 
waiting to buy bad bread; and while they waited with 


i Berthier de Sauvigny. Intendant of Paris. This also is taken from 
Carlyle. History of the French Revolution , Part I, Chap, ix, pp. 216-.. 



324 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


stomachs faint and empty, they beguiled the time by em¬ 
bracing one another on the triumphs of the day, and 
achieving them again in gossip. Gradually, these strings of 
ragged people shortened and frayed away; and then poor 
lights began to shine in high windows, and slender fires were 
made in the streets, at which neighbors cooked in common, 
afterwards supping at their doors. 

Scanty and insufficient suppers those, and innocent of meat, 
as of most other sauce to wretched bread. Yet, human 
fellowship infused some nourishment into the flinty viands, 
and struck some sparks of cheerfulness out of them. Fathers 
and mothers who had had their full share in the worst of 
the day, played gently with their meagre children; and 
lovers, with such a world around them and before them, 
loved and hoped. 

It was almost morning, when Defarge’s wine-shop parted 
with its last knot of customers, and Monsieur Defarge said 
to madame his wife, in husky tones, while fastening the door: 

“At last it is come, my dear!” 

“Eh well!” returned madame. “Almost.” 

Saint Antoine slept, the Defarges slept: even The Ven¬ 
geance slept with her starved grocer, and the drum was at 
rest. The drum’s was the only voice in Saint Antoine that 
blood and hurry had not changed. The Vengeance, as 
custodian of the drum, could have wakened him up and had 
the same speech out of him as before the Bastille fell, or old 
Foulon was seized; not so with the hoarse tones of the men 
and women in Saint Antoine’s bosom. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


FIRE RISES 

There was a change on the village where the fountain fell, 
and where the mender of roads went forth daily to hammer 
out of the stones on the highway such morsels of bread as 
might serve for patches to hold his poor ignorant soul and 
his poor reduced body together. The prison on the crag 
was not so dominant as of yore; there were soldiers to guard 
it, but not many; there were officers to guard the Soldiers, 
but not one of them knew what his men would do—beyond 
this: that it would probably not be what he was ordered. 

/ Far and wide lay a ruined country, yielding nothing but 
desolation. Every green leaf, every blade of grass and 
blade of grain, was as shrivelled and poor as the miserable 
people. Everything was bowed down, dejected, oppressed, 
and broken. Habitations, fences, domesticated animals, 
men, women, children, and the soil that bore them all 
worn out. 

Monseigneur (often a most worthy individual gentleman) 
was a national blessing, gave a chivalrous tone to things, was 
a polite example of luxurious and shining life, and a great 
deal more to equal purpose; nevertheless, Monseigneur as a 
class had, somehow or other, brought things to this. Strange 
that Creation, designed expressly for Monseigneur, should 
be so soon wrung dry and squeezed out! There must be 
something short-sighted in the eternal arrangements, surely! 
Thus it was, however; and the last drop of blood having 
been extracted from the flints, and the last screw of the 
rack having been turned so often that its purchase crumbled, 

325 


326 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 



and it now turned and turned with nothing to bite, Mon- | 
seigneur began to run away from a phenomenon so low and 
unaccountable. 

But, this was not the change on the village, and on many ? 
a village like it. Fpr scores of years gone by, Monseigneur . 
had squeezed it and wrung it, and had seldom graced it with 1 
his presence except for the pleasures of the chase now, 1 
found in hunting the people; now, found in hunting the 
beasts, for whose preservation Monseigneur made edifying 
spaces of barbarous and barren wilderness. No. The change 
v consisted in the appearance of strange faces of low caste, 
rather than in the disappearance of the high-caste, chiseled, j 
and otherwise beatified and beatifying features of Mon¬ 
seigneur. 

For, in these times, as the mender of roads worked, solitary, 
in the dust, not often troubling himself to reflect that dust 
he was and to dust he must return, being for the most 
part too much occupied in thinking how little he had for 
supper and how much more he would eat if he had it in 
these times as he raised his eyes from his lonely labour, and 
viewed the prospect, he would see some rough figure approach¬ 
ing on foot, the like of which was once a rarity in those 
parts, but was now a frequent presence. As it advanced, 
the mender of roads would discern without surprise, that it 
wasi a shaggy-haired man, of almost barbarian aspect, tall, 
in wooden shoes that were clumsy even to the eyes of a 
mender of roads, grim, rough, swart, steeped in the mud and 
glust of many highways, dank with the marshy moisture of 
many low grounds, sprinkled with the thorns and leaves and 
moss of many byways through woods. 

Such a man came upon him, like a ghost, at noon in the 
July weather, as he sat on his heap of stones under a bank, 
taking such shelter as he could get from a shower of hail. 




FIRE RISES 


327 


The man looked at him, looked at the village in the hollow, 

I at the mill, and at the prison on the crag. When he had 
identified these objects in what benighted mind he had, he 
j said, in a dialect that was just intelligible: 

“How goes it, Jacques?” 

“All well, Jacques.” 

“Touch then!” 

They joined hands, and the man sat down on the heap of 
stones. 

“No dinner?” 

“Nothing but supper now,” said the mender of roads, with 
a hungry face. 

“It is the fashion,” growled the man. “I meet no dinner 
anywhere.” 

He took out a blackened pipe, filled it, lighted it with flint 
and steel, pulled at it until it was in a bright glow: then, 
suddenly held it from him and dropped something into it 
from between his finger and thumb, that blazed and went out 
in a puff of smoke. 

“Touch then.” It was the turn of the mender of roads 
to say it this time, after observing these operations. They 
again joined hands. 

“To-night?” said the mender of roads. 

“To-night,” said the man, putting the pipe in his mouth. 

“Wkere?” 

“Here.” 

He and the mender of roads sat on the heap of stones look¬ 
ing silently at one another, with the hail driving in between 
them like a pigmy charge of bayonets, until the sky began to 
clear over the village. 

“Show me!” said the traveller then, moving to the brow 
of the hill. 

“See!” returned the mender of roads, with extended finger. 




328 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“You go down here, and straight through the street, and 
past the fountain-” 

“To the Devil with all that!” interrupted the other, rolling 
his eye over the landscape. “7 go through no streets and 
past no fountains. Well?” 

“Weill About two leagues beyond the summit of that 
hill above the village.” 

“Good. When do you cease to work?” 

“At sunset.” 

“Will you wake me, before departing? I have walked 
two nights without resting. Let me finish my pipe, and I 
shall sleep like a child. Will you wake me?” 

“Surely.” 

The wayfarer smoked his pipe out, put it in his breast, 
slipped off his great wooden shoes, and lay down on his back 
on the heap of stones. He was fast asleep directly. 

As the road-mender plied his dusty labour, and the hail- 
clouds, rolling away, revealed bright bars and streaks of sky 
which were responded to by silver gleams upon the land¬ 
scape, the little man (who wore a red cap now, in place of 
his blue one) seemed fascinated by the figure on the heap 
of stones. His eyes were so often turned towards it, that 
he used his tools mechanically, and, one would have said, to 
very poor account. The bronze face, the shaggy black hair 
and beard, the coarse woolen red cap, the rough medley dress 
of home-spun stuff and hairy skins of beasts, 1 the powerful 
frame attenuated by spare living, and the sullen and desper¬ 
ate compression of the lips in sleep, inspired the mender of 
roads with awe. The traveller had travelled far, and his feet 
were footsore, and his ankles chafed and bleeding; his great 

i A touch of realism. The elder Mirabeau, who saw a group of peasants 
at a festival, describes them as “frightful looking men, or rather wild 
beasts, covered with coats of coarse wool, wearing wide leather belts 
pierced with copper nails,—their faces haggard and covered with long 
matted hair.” 



FIRE RISES 


329 


shoes, stuffed with leaves and grass, had been heavy to drag 
over the many long leagues, and his clothes were,chafed into 
holes, as he himself was into sores. Stooping down beside 
him, the road-mender tried to get a peep at secret weapons 
in his breast or where not; but in vain, for he slept with his 
arms crossed upon him, and set as resolutely as his lips. 
Fortified towns with their stockades, guard-houses, gates, 
trenches, and drawbridges, seemed to the mender of roads 
to be so much air as against this figure. And when he 
lifted his eyes from it to the horizon and looked around, 
he saw in his small fancy similar figures, stopped by no ob¬ 
stacle, tending to centres all over France. 

The man slept on, indifferent to showers of hail and 
intervals of brightness, to sunshine on his face and shadow 
to the pattering lumps of /dull ice on his body and the dia¬ 
monds into which the sun changed them, until the sun was 
low in the west, and the sky was glowing. Then, the mender 
of roads having got his tools together and all things ready to 
go down into the village, roused him. 

“Good!” said the sleeper, rising on his elbow. “Two leagues 
beyond the summit of the hill?” 

“About.” 

“About. Good!” 

The mender of roads went home, with the dust going on 
before him according to the set of the wind, and was soon at 
the fountain, squeezing himself in among the lean kine 
brought there to drink, and appearing even to whisper to 
them in his whispering to all the village. When the village 
had taken its poor supper, it did not creep to bed, as it 
usually did, but came out of doors again, and remained 
there. A curious contagion of whispering was upon it, and 
also, when it gathered together at the fountain in the dark, 
another curious contagion of looking expectantly at the sky 




330 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


in one direction only. Monsieur Gabelle, chief functionary 
of the place, became uneasy; went out on his house-top 
alone, and looked in that direction too; glanced down from 
behind his chimneys at the darkening faces by the fountain 
below, and sent word to the sacristan who kept the keys of 
the church, that there might be need to ring the tocsin by- 
and-by. 

The night deepened. The trees environing the old 
chateau, keeping its solitary state apart, moved in a rising 
wind, as though they threatened the pile of building massive 
and dark in the gloom. Up the two terrace flights of steps 
the rain ran wildly, and beat at the great door, like a swift 
messenger rousing those within; uneasy rushes of wind went 
through the hall, among the old spears and knives, and 
passed lamenting up the stairs, and shook the curtains of 
the bed where the last Marquis had slept. East, West, 
North and South, through the woods, four heavy-treading, 
unkempt figures crushed the high grass and cracked the 
branches, striding on cautiously to come together in the 
court-yard. Four lights broke out there, and moved away 
in different directions, and all was black again. 

But not for long. Presently, the chateau began to make 
itself strangely visible by some light of its own, as though 
it were growing luminous. Then, a flickering streak played 
behind the architecture of the front, picking out transparent 
places, and showing where balustrades, arches, and windows 
were. Then it soared higher, and grew broader and brighter. 
Soon, from a score of the great windows, flames burst forth, 
and the stone faces awakened, stared out of fire. 

A faint murmur arose about the house from the few 
people who were left there, and there was a saddling of a 
horse and riding away. There was spurring and splash¬ 
ing through the darkness, and bridle was drawn in the 



FIRE RISES 


331 


j space by the village fountain, and the horse in a foam 
stood at Monsieur Gabelle’s door. “Help, Gabelle! Help, 
every one!” The tocsin rang impatiently, but other help 
(if that were any) there was none. The mender of roads, 
| and two hundred and fifty particular friends, stood with 
| folded arms at the fountain, looking at the pillar of fire 
in the sky. “It must be forty feet high,” said they grimly; 
and never moved. 

The rider from the chateau, and the horse in a foam, 
clattered away through the village, and galloped up the stony 
steep, to the prison on the crag. At the gate, a group of 
officers were looking at the fire; removed from them, a group 
of soldiers. “Help, gentlemen-officers! The chateau is on 
fire; valuable objects may be saved from the flames by timely 
aid! Help, help!” The officers looked towards the soldiers 
who looked at the fire; 1 gave no orders; and answered, with 
shrugs and biting of lips, “It must burn.” 2 

As the rider rattled down the hill again and through the 
street, the village was illuminating. The mender of roads, 
and the two hundred and fifty particular friends, inspired as 
one man and woman by the idea of lighting up, had darted 
into their houses, and were putting candles in every dull 
little pane of glass. The general scarcity of everything 
occasioned candles to be borrowed in a rather peremptory 
manner of Monsieur Gabelle; and in a moment of reluctance 
and hesitation on that functionary’s part, the mender of 
roads, once so submissive to authority, had remarked that 
carriages were good to make bonfires with, and that post- 
horses would roast. 

1 On the insubordination of the soldiery read Carlyle, History of the 
French Revolution, Part I, Book V, Chap m, p. 202 ff. 

2 On the incendiary fires see Taine, French Revolution, Book I, Chap, 
in, p. 78, where he says that thirty-six chateaux were burned in one prov¬ 
ince. See, also, H. Morse Stephens, The French Revolution, Vol. II, Chap. 
XI, p. 362. 




332 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


The chateau was left to itselt to flame and burn. In the 
roaring and raging of the conflagration, a red-hot wind, 
driving straight from the infernal regions, seemed to be 
blowing the edifice away. With the rising and falling of the 
blaze, the stone faces showed as if they were in torment. 
When great masses of stone and timber fell, the face with 
the two dints in the nose became obscured: anon struggled 
out of the smoke again, as if it were the face of the cruel 
Marquis, burning at the stake and contending with the fire. 

The chateau burned; the nearest trees, laid hold of by the 
fire, scorched and shrivelled; trees at a distance, fired by the 
four fierce figures, begirt the blazing edifice with a new forest 
of smoke. Molten lead and iron boiled in the marble basin 
of the fountain; the water ran dry; the extinguisher tops of 
the towers vanished like ice before the heat, and trickled 
down into four rugged wells of flame. Great rents and splits 
branched out in the solid walls, like crystallisation; stupefied 
birds wheeled about and dropped into the furnace; four fierce 
figures trudged away, East, West, North, and South, along 
the night-enshrouded roads, guided by the beacon they had 
lighted, towards their next destination. The illuminated 
village had seized hold of the tocsin, and, abolishing the 
lawful ringer, rang for joy. 

Not only that; but the village, light-headed with famine,' 
fire, and bell-ringing, and bethinking itself that Monsieur 
Gabelle had to do with the collection of rent and taxes— 
though it was but a small instalment of taxes, and no rent 
at all, that Gabelle had got in those latter days—became 
impatient for an interview with him, and, surrounding his 
house, summoned him to come forth for personal conference. 
Whereupon, Monsieur Gabelle did heavily bar his door, and 

1 See Carlyle, History of the French Revolution , Part I, Book V, Chap, 
til, p. 200 ff. Also Taine, French Revolution , Vol. 1, Book I. Chap. in. 


FIRE RISES 


333 


retire to hold counsel with himself. The result of that con¬ 
ference was, that Gabelle again withdrew himself to his 
, house-top behind his stack of chimneys; this time resolved, 
if his door were broken in (he was a small Southern man of 
retaliative temperament), to pitch himself head foremost over 
the parapet, and crush a man or two below. 

Probably, Monsieur Gabelle passed a long night up there, 
with the distant chateau for fire and candle, and the beating 
at his door, combined with the joy-ringing, for music; not 
to mention his having an ill-omened lamp slung across the 
road before his posting-house gate, which the village showed 
a lively inclination to displace in his favour. A trying 
suspense, to be passing a whole summer night on the brink 
of the black ocean, ready to take that plunge into it upon 
which Monsieur Gabelle had resolved! But, the friendly 
dawn appearing at last, and the rush-candles of the village 
guttering out, the people happily dispersed, and Monsieur 
Gabelle came down bringing his life with him for that while. 

Within a hundred miles, and in the light of other fires, 
there were other functionaries less fortunate, that night and 
other nights, whom the rising sun found hanging across 
once-peaceful streets, where they had been born and bred; 
also, there were other villagers and townspeople less fortunate 
than the mender of roads and his fellows, upon whom the 
functionaries and soldiery turned with success, and whom 
they strung up in their turn. But, the fierce figures were 
steadily wending East, West, North, and South, be that as it 
would; and whosoever hung, fire burned. The altitude of 
the gallows that would turn to water and quench it, no 
functionary, by any stretch of mathematics, was able to 
calculate successfully. 





CHAPTER XXIV. 

DRAWN TO THE LOADSTONE ROCK 

In such risings of fire and risings of sea the firm earth 
shaken by the rushes of an angry ocean which had now no j 
ebb, but, was always on the flow, higher and higher, to the 
terror and wonder of the beholders on the shore three j 
years of tempest were consumed. Three more birthdays of 
little Lucie had been woven by the golden thread into the 
peaceful tissue of the life of her home. 

Many a night and many a day had its inmates listened to 
the echoes in the corner, with hearts that failed them when 
they heard the thronging feet. For, the footsteps had be- ; 
come to their minds as the footsteps of a people, tumultuous I 
under a red flag and with their country declared in danger, 
changed into wild beasts, by terrible enchantment long 
persisted in. 

Monseigneur, as a class, had dissociated himself from the 
phenomenon of his not being appreciated: of his being so 
little wanted in France, as to incur considerable danger of 
receiving his dismissal from it and this life together. Like the 
fabled rustic who raised the devil with infinite pains, and 
was so terrified at the sight of him that he could ask the* 
Enemy no question, but immediately fled; so, Monseigneur, 
after boldly reading the Lord’s Prayer backwards for a great 
number of years, and performing many other potent spells for 
compelling the Evil One, no sooner beheld him in his terrors 
than he took to his noble heels. 

The shining Bull’s Eye of the Court was gone, or it would 
have been the mark for a hurricane of national bullets. It 

334 




DRAWN TO THE LOADSTONE ROCK 335 

had never been a good eye to see with—had long had the 
mote in it of Lucifer’s pride, 1 Sardanapalus’s luxury, 2 and a 
mole's blindness—but it had dropped out and was gone. The 
Court, from that exclusive inner circle to its outermost rotten 
ring of intrigue, corruption, and dissimulation, was all gone 
together. Royalty was gone; had been besieged in its Palace 
and “suspended” 3 when the last tidings came over. 

The August of the year one thousand seven hundred and 
ninety-two was come, and Monseigneur was by this time 
scattered far and wide. 

As was natural, the head-quarters and great gathering- 
place of Monseigneur, in London, 4 was Tellson’s Bank. 
Spirits are supposed to haunt the places where their bodies 
most resorted, and Monseigneur without a guinea haunted 
the spot where his guineas used to be. Moreover, it was 
the spot to which such French intelligence as was most 
to be relied upon, came quickest. Again: Tellson’s was 
a munificent house, and extended great liberality to old 
customers who had fallen from their high estate. Again: 
those nobles who had seen the coming storm in time, and 
anticipating plunder or confiscation, had made provident 
remittances to Tellson’s, were always to be heard of there 
by their needy brethren. To which it must be added that 
every new-comer from France reported himself and his 
tidings at Tellson’s, almost as a matter of course. For 
such variety of reasons, Tellson’s was at that time, as to 

„ 1 Read Cary’s translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy, Hell, Canto 34, 11 

u. 

2 Sardanapalus, king of Nineveh and Assyria, was noted for his luxury 
and voluptuousness. Byron’s tragedy, Sardanapalus, appeared in 1821, and 
was dedicated to Goethe. 

3 August 10, 1792, it was voted that the king be suspended from his office, 
and that he be lodged in the Luxembourg with an allowance for expenses! 
See Cambridge Modern History, Vol. VIII, p. 237. 

4 On the French refugees in England see The French Revolution, by H. 
Morse Stephens, Vol. II, Chap. xiii. 


336 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


French intelligence, a kind of High Exchange; and this was 
so well known to the public, and the inquiries made there 
were in consequence so numerous, that Tellson’s sometimes 
wrote the latest news out in a line or so and posted it in the 
Bank windows, for all who ran through Temple Bar to read. 

On a steaming, misty afternoon, Mr. Lorry sat at his des -, 
and Charles Darnay stood leaning on it, talking with him 
in a low voice. The penitential den once set apart tor 
interviews with the House, was now the news-Exchange, an 
was filled to overflowing. It was within half an hour or so 

of the time of closing. , „ 

“But, although you are the youngest man that ever lived, 
said Charles Darnay, rather hesitating, “I must still suggest 
to you-” 

“I understand. That I am too old?” said Mr. Lorry. 
“Unsettled weather, a long journey, uncertain means of 
travelling, a disorganised country, a city that may not be 
even safe for you.” 

“My dear Charles,” said Mr. Lorry, with cheerful con¬ 
fidence, “you touch some of the reasons for my going: not 
for my’staying away. It is safe enough for me; nobody will 
care to interfere with an old fellow of hard upon fourscore 
when there are so many people there much better worth 
interfering with. As to its being a disorganised city, if it 
were not a disorganised city there would be no occasion to 
send somebody from our House here to our House there, who 
knows the city and the business, of old, and is in Tellson s 
confidence. As to the uncertain travelling, the long journey, 
and the winter weather, if I were not prepared to submit 
myself to a few inconveniences for the sake of Tellson s, 
after all these years, who ought to be?” 

“I wish I were going myself,” said Charles Darnay, some* 
what restlessly, and like one thinking aloud. 







DRAWN TO THE LOADSTONE ROCK 


337 


“Indeed! You are a pretty fellow to object and advise!” 
exclaimed Mr. Lorry. “You wish you were going yourself? 
And you a Frenchman born? You are a wise counsellor.” 

“My dear Mr. Lorry, it is because I am a Frenchman 
born, that the thought (which I did not mean to utter here 
however) has passed through my mind often. One cannot 
help thinking, having had some sympathy for the miserable 
people, and having abandoned something to them,” he spoke 
here in his former thoughtful manner, “that one might be 
listened to, and might have the power to persuade to some 
restraint. Only last night, after you had left us, when I was 
talking to Lucie-” 

“When you were talking to Lucie,” Mr. Lorry repeated. 
“Yes. I wonder you are not ashamed to mention the name 
of Lucie! Wishing you were going to France at this time 
of day!” 

“However, I am not going,” said Charles Darnay, with a 
smile. “It is more to the purpose that you say you are.” 

“And I am in plain reality. The truth is, my dear Charles,” 
Mr. Lorry glanced at the distant House, and lowered hi$ 
voice, “you can have no conception of the difficulty with 
which our business is transacted, and of the peril in which 
our books and papers over yonder are involved. The Lord 
above knows what the compromising consequences would 
be to numbers cf people, if some of our documents were 
seized or destroyed; and they might be at any time, you 
know, for who can say that Paris is not set a-fire to-day, 
or sacked to-morrow! Now, a judicious selection from these 
with the least possible delay, and the burying of them, or 
otherwise getting of them out of harm’s way, is within the 
power (without loss of precious time) of scarcely any one 
but myself, if any one. And shall I hang back, when Telh 
son’s knows this and says this—Tellson’s, whose bread I 



338 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


have eaten these sixty years— because I am a little stiff 
about the joints? Why, I am a boy, sir, to half a dozen 
old codgers here!” 

“How I admire the gallantry of your youthful spirit, Mr. 

Lorry.” ^ ' ' 1 

“Tut! Nonsense, sir!—And, my dear Charles,” said Mr. 
Lorry, glancing at the House again, “you are to remember, 
that getting things out of Paris at this present time, no matter 
what things, is next to an impossibility. Papers and precious 
matters were this very day brought to us here (I speak in 
strict confidence; it is not business-like to whisper it, even to 
you), by the strangest bearers you can imagine, every one of 
whom had his head hanging on by a single hair as he passed 
the Barriers. At another time, our parcels would come and 
go, as easily as in business-like Old England; but now, every¬ 
thing is stopped.” 

“And do you really go to-night?” 

“I really go to-night, for the case has become too pressing 
to admit of delay.” 

“And do you take no one with you?” 

“All sorts of people have been proposed to me, but I will 
have nothing to say to any of them. I intend to take Jerry. 
Jerry has been my body-guard on Sunday nights for a long 
time past, and I am used to him. Nobody will suspect Jerry 
of being anything but an English bull-dog, or of having any 
design in his head but to fly at anybody who touches his 
master.” 

“I must say again that I heartily admire your gallantry 
and youthfulness.” 

“I must say again, nonsense, nonsense! When I have 
executed this little commission, I shall, perhaps, accept Tell- 
son’s proposal to retire and live at my ease. Time enough, 
then, to think about growing old.” 








DRAWN TO THE LOADSTONE ROCK 


339 


This dialogue had taken place at Mr. Lorry’s usual desk, 
with Monseigneur swarming within a yard or two of it, 
boastful of what he would do to avenge himself on the rascal- 
people before long. It was too much the way of Monseigneur 
under his reverses as a refugee, and it was much too much the 
way of native British orthodoxy, to talk of this terrible 
Revolution as if it were the one only harvest ever known 
under the skies that had not been sown—as if nothing had 
ever been done, or omitted to be done, that had led to it— as 
if observers of the wretched millions in France, and of the 
misused and perverted resources that should have made them 
prosperous, had not seen it inevitably coming, years before, 
and had not in plain words recorded what they saw. Such 
vapouring, combined with the extravagant plots of Monseig¬ 
neur for the restoration of a state of things that had utterly 
exhausted itself, and worn out Heaven and earth as well as 
itself, was hard to be endured without some remonstrance 
by any sane man who knew the truth. And it was such 
vapouring all about his ears, like a troublesome confusion 
of blood in his own head, added to a latent uneasiness in his 
mind, which had already made Charles Darnay restless, and 
which still kept him so. 

Among the talkers, was Stryver, of the King’s Bench Bar, 
far on his way to state promotion, and, therefore, loud on the 
theme: broaching to Monseigneur, his devices for blowing the 
people up and exterminating them from the face of the earth, 
and doing without them: and for accomplishing many similar 
objects akin in their nature to the abolition of eagles by 
sprinkling salt on the tails of the race. Him, Darnay heard 
with a particular feeling of objection; and Darnay stood 
divided between going away that he might hear no more, 
and remaining to interpose his word, when the thing that was 
to be went on to shape itself out. 


340 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


The House approached Mr. Lorry, and laying a soiled and 
unopened letter before him, asked if he had yet discovered 
any traces of the person to whom it was addressed? The 
House laid the letter down so close to Darnay that he saw the 
direction—the more quickly because it was his own right 
name. The address, turned into English, ran: 

“Very pressing. To Monsieur heretofore the Marquis St. 
Evremonde, of France. Confided to the care of Messrs. 
Tellson and Co., Bankers, London, England.” 

On the marriage morning, Dr. Manette had made it his one 
urgent and express request to Charles Darnay, that the 
secret of this name should be—unless he, the Doctor, dis¬ 
solved the obligation—kept inviolate between them. Nobody 
else knew it to be his name; his own wife had no suspicion of 
the fact; Mr. L»orry could have none. 

“No,” said Mr. Lorry, in reply to the House; “I have re¬ 
ferred it, I think, to everybody now here, and no one can tell 
me where this gentleman is to be found.” 

The hands of the clock verging upon the hour of closing 
the Bank, there was a general set of the current of talkers past 
Mr. Lorry’s desk. He held the letter out inquiringly; and 
Monseigneur looked at it, in the person of this plotting and 
indignant refugee; and Monseigneur looked at it, in the person 
of that plotting and indignant refugee; and This, That, and 
The Other, all had something disparaging to say, in French 
or in English, concerning the Marquis who was not to be 
found. 

“Nephew, I believe—but in any case degenerate successor 
—of the polished Marquis who was murdered,” said one. 
“Happy to say, I never knew him.” 

“A craven who abandoned his post,” said another—this 
Mor seigneur had been got out of Paris, legs uppermost and 
half suffocated, in a load of hay—“some years ago.” 


DRAWN TO THE LOADSTONE ROCK 


341 


“Infected with the new doctrines,” said a third, eyeing the 
direction through his glass in passing; “set himself in opposi¬ 
tion to the last Marquis, abandoned the estates when he in¬ 
herited them, and left them to the ruffian herd. They will 
recompense him now, I hope, as he deserves.” 

“Hey?” cried the blatant Stryver. “Did he though? Is 
that the sort of fellow? Let us look at his infamous name. 
D—n the fellow!” 

Damay, unable to restrain himself any longer, touched 
Mr. Stryver on the shoulder, and said: 

“I know the fellow.” 

“Do you, by Jupiter?” said Stryver. “I am sorry for it.” 

“Why?” 

“Why, Mr. Darnay? D’ye hear what he did? Don’t ask 
why, in these times.” 

“But I do ask why?” 

“Then I tell you again, Mr. Darnay, I am sorry for it. I am 
sorry to hear you putting any such extraordinary questions. 
Here is a fellow, who, infected by the most pestilent and blas¬ 
phemous code of devilry that ever was known, abandoned 
his property to the vilest scum of the earth that ever did 
murder by wholesale, and you ask me why I am sorry that a 
man who instructs youth knows him? Well, but I’ll answer 
you. I am sorry because I believe there is contamination 
in such a scoundrel. That’s why.” 

Mindful of the secret, Darnay with great difficulty checked 
himself, and said: “You may not understand the gentleman.” 

“I understand how to put you in a corner, Mr. Darnay,” 
said Bully Stryver, “and I’ll do it. If this fellow is a gentle¬ 
man, I don't understand him. You may tell him so, with my 
compliments. You may also tell him, from me, that after 
abandoning his worldly goods and position to this butcherly 
mob, I wonder he is not at the head of them. But, no, gen- 


342 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


tlemen,” said Stryver, looking all round, and snapping his 
fingers, “I know something of human nature, and I tell you 
that you’ll never find a fellow like this fellow, trusting him¬ 
self to the mercies of such precious proteges. No, gentlemen; 
he’ll always show ’em a clean pair of heels very early in the 
scuffle, and sneak away.” 

With those words, and a final snap of his fingers, Mr. 
Stryver shouldered himself into Fleet-street, amidst the 
general approbation of his hearers. Mr. Lorry and Charles 
Darnay were left alone at the desk, in the general departure 
from the Bank. 

“Will you take charge of the letter?” said Mr. Lorry. 
“You know where to deliver it?” 

“I do.” 

“Will you undertake to explain, that we suppose it to have 
been addressed here, on the chance of our knowing where to 
forward it, and that it has been here some time?” 

“I will do so. Do you start for Paris from here?” 

“From here, at eight.” 

“I will come back, to see you off.” 

Very ill at ease with himself, and with Stryver and most 
other men, Darnay made the best of his way into the quiet 
of the Temple, opened' the letter, and read it. These were 
its contents: 

"Prison of the Abbaye, Paris. 

"June 21, 1792. 

“Monsieur heretofore the Marquis. 

“After having long been in danger of my life at the hands 
of the village, I have been seized, with great violence and 
indignity, and brought a long journey on foot to Paris. On 
the.road I have suffered a great deal. Nor is that all; my 
house has been destroyed—razed to the ground. 

“The crime for which I am imprisoned, Monsieur hereto¬ 
fore the Marquis, and for which I shall be summoned before 
the tribunal, and shall lose my life (without your so generous 


DRAWN TO THE LOADSTONE ROCK 


343 


help), is, they tell me, treason against the majesty of the peo¬ 
ple, in that I have acted against them for an emigrant. It 
is in vain I represent that I have acted for them, and not 
against, according to your commands. It is in vain I repre¬ 
sent that, before the sequestration of emigrant property, I 
had remitted the imposts they had ceased to pay; that I had 
collected no rent; that I had had recourse to no process. 
The only response is, that I have acted for an emigrant, and 
where is that emigrant? 

“Ah! most gracious Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, where 
is that emigrant? I cry in my sleep where is he? 1 demand 
of Heaven, will he not come to deliver me? No answer. 
Ah Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, I send my desolate cry 
across the sea, hoping it may perhaps reach your ears through 
the great bank of Tilson known at Paris! 

“For the love of Heaven, of justice, of generosity, of the 
honour of your noble name, I supplicate you, Monsieur here¬ 
tofore the Marquis, to succour and release me. My fault is, 
that I have been true to you. Oh Monsieur heretofore the 
Marquis, I pray you be you true to me! 

“From this prison here of horror, whence I every hour tend 
nearer and nearer to destruction, I send you, Monsieur here¬ 
tofore the Marquis, the assurance of my dolorous and un- 
happy service. 

“Your afflicted, 

“Gabelle.” 

The latent uneasiness in Darnay’s mind was roused to 
vigorous life by this letter. The peril of an old servant and 
a good one, whose only crime was fidelity to himself and his 
family, stared him so reproachfully in the face, that, as he 
walked to and fro in the Temple considering what to do, he 
almost hid his face from the passers-by. 

He knew very well, that in his horror of the deed which 
had culminated the bad deeds and bad reputation of the old 
family house, in his resentful suspicibns of his uncle, and in 
the aversion with which his conscience regarded the crum¬ 
bling fabric that he was supposed to uphold, he had acted im- 


344 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


perfectly. He knew very well, that in his love for Lucie, his 
renunciation of his social place, though by no means new 
to his own mind, had been hurried and incomplete. He 
knew that he ought to have systematically worked it out 
and supervised it, and that he had meant to do it, and that it 
had never been done. 

The happiness of his own chosen English home, the neces¬ 
sity of being always actively employed, the swift changes and' 
troubles of the time which had followed on one another so 
fast, that the events of this week annihilated the immature 
plans of last week, and the events of the week following made 
all new again; he knew very well, that to the force of these 
circumstances he had yielded:—not without disquiet, but 
still without continuous and accumulating resistance. That 
he had watched the times for a time of action, and that they 
had shifted and struggled until the time had gone by, and 
the nobility were trooping from France by every highway 
and byway, and their property was in course of confisca¬ 
tion and destruction, and their very names were blotting out, 
was as well known to himself as it could be to any new author¬ 
ity in France that might impeach him for it. 

But, he had oppressed no man, he had imprisoned no man; 
he was so far from having harshly exacted payment of his 
dues, that he had relinquished them of his own will, thrown 
himself on a world with no favour in it, won his own private 
place there, and earned his own bread. Monsieur Gabelle 
had held the impoverished and involved estate on written 
instructions, to spare the people, to give them what little there 
was to give—such fuel as the heavy creditors would let them 
have in the winter, and such produce as could be saved from 
the same grip in the summer—and no doubt he had put the 
fact in plea and proof, for his own safety, so that it could not 
but appear now. 




DRAWN TO THE LOADSTONE ROCK 


345 


This favoured the desperate resolution Charles Darnay had 
begun to make, that he would go to Paris. 

Yes. Like the mariner in the old story, the winds and 
streams had driven him within the influence of the Loadstone 
Rock, and it was drawing him to itself, and he must go. 
Everything that arose before his mind drifted him on, faster 
and faster, more and more steadily, to the terrible attraction. 
His latent uneasiness had been, that bad aims were being 
worked out in his own unhappy land by bad instruments, and 
that he who could not fail to know that he was better than 
they, was not there, trying to do something to stay blood¬ 
shed, and assert the claims of mercy and humanity. With 
this uneasiness half stifled, and half reproaching him, he had 
been brought to the pointed comparison of himself with the 
brave old gentleman in whom duty was so strong; upon that 
comparison (injurious to himself) had instantly followed the 
sneers of Monseigneur, which had stung him bitterly, and 
those of Stryver, which above all were coarse and galling, for 
old reasons. Upon those had followed Gabelle’s letter: the 
appeal of an innocent prisoner, in danger of death, to his 
justice, honour, and good name. 

His resolution was made. He must go to Paris. 

Yes. The Loadstone Rock was drawing him, and he must 
sail on, until he struck. He knew of no rock; he saw hardly 
any danger. The intention with which he had done what he 
had done, even although he had left it incomplete, presented 
it before him in an aspect that would be gratefully acknowl¬ 
edged in France on his presenting himself to assert it. Then, 
that glorious vision of doing good, which is so often the san¬ 
guine mirage of so many good minds, arose before him, and he 
even saw himself in the illusion with some influence to guide 
this raging Revolution that was running so fearfully wild. 

As he walked to and fro with his resolution made, he con- 


346 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


sidered that neither Lucie nor her father must know of it until 
he was gone. Lucie should be spared the pain of separation; 
and her father, always reluctant to turn his thoughts towards 
the dangerous ground of old, should come to the knowledge 
of the step, as a step taken, and not in the balance of suspense 
and doubt. How much of the incompleteness of his situation 
was referable to her father, through the painful anxiety to 
avoid reviving old associations of France in his mind, he did 
not discuss with himself. But, that circumstance too, had 
had its influence in his course. > . 

He walked to and fro, with thoughts very busy, until it 
was time to return toTellson’s and take leave of Mr. Lorry. 
As soon as he arrived in Paris he would present himself to this 
old friend, but he must say nothing of his intention now. 

A carriage with post-horses was ready at the Bank door, 
and Jerry was booted and equipped. 

“I have delivered that letter,” said Charles Darnay toMr.* 
Lorry. “I would not consent to your being charged with 
any written answer, but perhaps you will take a verbal one?’ 

“That I will, and readily,” said Mr. Lorry, “if it is not 
dangerous.” 

“Not at all. Though it is to a prisoner in the Abbaye. 

“What is his name?”’ said Mr. Lorrv, with his open pocket- 
book in his hand. 

“Gabelle.” 

“Gabelle. And what is the message to the unfortunate 
■'Gabelle in prison?” 

“Simply, ‘that he has received the letter, and will come/ ” 

“Any time mentioned?” 

“He will start upon his journey to-morrow night.” 

“Any person mentioned?” 

“No.” 

He helped Mr. Lorry to wrap himself in a number of coats 






DRAWN TO THE LOADSTONE ROCK 


347 


and cloaks, and went out with him from the warm atmosphere 
of the old Bank, into the misty air of Fleet-street. “My love 
to Lucie, and to little Lucie,” said Mr. Lorry at parting, “and 
take precious care of them till I come back.” Charles Darnay 
shook his head and doubtfully smiled, as the carriage rolled 
away. 

That night—it was the fourteenth of August—he sat up 
late, and wrote two fervent letters; one was to Lucie, explain¬ 
ing the strong obligation he was under to go to Paris, and 
showing her, at length, the reasons that he had, for feeling 
confident that he could become involved in no personal dan¬ 
ger there; the other was to the Doctor, confiding Lucie and 
their dear child to his care, and dwelling on the same topics 
with the strongest assurance. To both he wrote that he 
would despatch letters in proof of his safety, immediately 
after his arrival. 

It was a hard day, that day of being among them, with the 
first reservation of their joint lives on his mind. It was a 
hard matter to preserve the innocent deceit of which they 
were profoundly unsuspicious. But, an affectionate glance 
at his wife, so happy and busy, made him resolute not to tell 
her what impended (he had been half moved to do it, so 
strange it was to him to act in anything without her quiet 
aid), and the day passed quickly away. Early in the evening 
he embraced her, and her scarcely less dear namesake, pre¬ 
tending that he would return by-and-by (an imaginary en¬ 
gagement took him out, and he had secreted a valise of 
clothes ready), and so he emerged into the heavy mist of the 
heavy streets, with a heavier heart. 

The unseen force was drawing him fast to itself, now, and all 
the tides and winds were setting straight and strong towards 
it. He left his two letters with a trusty porter, to be deliv¬ 
ered half an hour before midnight, and no sooner; took horse 


348 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


for Dover; and began his journey. “For the love of Heaven, 
of justice, of generosity, of the honour of your noble name!” 
was the poor prisoner’s cry with which he strengthened his 
sinking heart, as he left all that was dear on earth behind him, 
and floated away for the Loadstone Rock. 

THE END OF THE SECOND BOOK. 



BOOK THE THIRD. THE TRACK OF A 
STORM 


CHAPTER I. 

IN SECRET 

The traveller fared slowly on his way, who fared towards 
Paris from England in the autumn of the year one thousand 
seven hundred and ninety-two. More than enough of bad 
roads, bad equipages, and bad horses, he would have en¬ 
countered to delay him, though the fallen and unfortunate 
King of France had been upon his throne in all his glory; but, 
the changed times were fraught with other obstacles than 
these. 1 Every town-gate and village taxing-house had its 
band of citizen-patriots, with their national muskets in a 
most explosive state of readiness, who stopped all corners and 
goers, cross-questioned them, inspected their papers, looked 
for their names in lists of their own, turned them back, or sent 
them on, or stopped them and laid them in hold, as their 
capricious judgment or fancy deemed best for the dawning 
Republic One and Indivisible, of Liberty, Equality, Frater¬ 
nity, or Death. 

A very few French leagues of his journey were accom¬ 
plished when Charles Darnay began to perceive that for 
him along these country roads there was no hope of return 
until he should have been declared a good citizen at Paris. 
Whatever might befall now, he must on to his journey’s end. 
Not a mean village closed upon him, not a common barrier 

i On the attitude toward the dmigrds, as they were called, read H. 
Morse Stephens, The French Revolution, Vol II, Chap, xm, p, 496 ff. 

349 


350 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


dropped across the road behind him, but he knew it to be 
another iron door, in the series that was barred between him 
and England. The universal watchfulness so encompassed 
him, that if he had been taken in a net, or were being for¬ 
warded to his destination in a cage he could not have felt his 
freedom more completely gone. 

This universal watchfulness not only stopped him on the 
highway twenty times in a stage, but retarded his progress 
twenty times in a day, by riding after him and taking him 
back, riding before him and stopping him by anticipation, 
riding with him and keeping him in charge. He had been 
days upon his journey in France alone, when he went to bed 
tired out, in a little town on the high road, still a long way 
from Paris. 

Nothing but the production of the afflicted Gabelle s letter 
from his prison of the Abbaye would have got him on so far. 
His difficulty at the guard-house in this small place had been 
such, that he felt his journey to have come to a crisis. And 
he was, therefore, as little surprised as a man could be, to 
find himself awakened at the small inn to which he had been 
remitted until morning, in the middle of the night. 

Awakened by a timid local functionary and three armed 
patriots in rough red caps and with pipes in their mouths, 
who sat down on the bed. 

“Emigrant,” said the functionary, “I am going to send you 
on to Paris, under an escort.” 

“Citizen, I desire nothing more than to get to Paris, though 
I could dispense with the escort.” 

“Silence!” growled a red-cap, striking at the coverlet with 
the butt-end of his musket. “Peace, aristocrat!” 

“It is as the good patriot says,” observed the timid func- 


IN SECRET 


351 


tionary. “You are an aristocrat, and must have an escort— 
and must pay for it.” • 

“I have no choice,” said Charles Darnay. 

“Choice! Listen to him!” cried the same scowling red-cap. 
“As if it was not a favour to be protected from the lamp- 
iron!” 

“It is always as the good patriot says,” observed the 
functionary. “Rise and dress yourself, emigrant.” 

Darnay complied, and was taken back to the guard-house, 
where other patriots in rough red caps were smoking, drink¬ 
ing, and sleeping, by a watch-fire. Here he paid a heavy 
price for his escort, and hence he started with it on the wet. 
wet roads at three o’clock in the morning. 

yhe escort were two mounted patriots in red caps and tri¬ 
coloured cockades, armed with national muskets and sabres, 
who rode one on either side of him. The escorted governed 
his own horse, but a loose line was attached to his bridle, the 
end of which one of the patriots kept girded round his wrist. 
In this state they set forth with the sharp rain driving in 
their faces: clattering at a heavy dragoon trot, over the un¬ 
even town pavement, and out upon the mire-deep roads. In 
this state they traversed without change, except of horses 
and pace, all the mire-deep leagues that lay between them 
and the capital. 

They travelled in the night, halting an hour or two after 
daybreak, and lying by until the twilight fell. The escort 
were so wretchedly clothed, that they twisted straw round 
their bare legs, and thatched their ragged shoulders to keep 
the wet off. Apart from the personal discomfort of being so 
attended, and apart from such considerations of present dan¬ 
ger as arose from one of the patriots being chronically drunk, 
and carrying his musket very recklessly, Charles Darnay did 
not allow the restraint that was laid upon him to awaken any 


352 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


serious fears in his breast; for, he reasoned with himself that 
it could have no reference to the merits of an individual case 
that was not yet stated, and of representations, confirmable 
by the prisoner in the Abbaye, that were not yet made, 

But when they came to the town of Beauvais—which they 
did at eventide, when the streets were filled with people—he 
could not conceal from himself that the aspect of affairs was 
very alarming. An ominous crowd gathered to see him dis¬ 
mount at the posting-yard, and many voices called out loudly, 
“Down with the emigrant!” 

He stopped in the act of swinging himself out of his saddle, 
and, resuming it as his safest place, said: 

“Emigrant, my friends! Do you not see me nere, in 
France, of my own will?” 

“Xpu are a cursed emigrant,” cried a farrier, making at him 
in a furious manner through the press, hammer in hand; “and 
you are a cursed aristocrat!” 

The postmaster interposed himself between this man and 
the rider’s bridle (at which he was evidently making), and 
soothingly said, “Let him be; let him be! He will be judged 
at Paris.” • 

“Judged!” repeated the farrier, swinging his hammer. 
“Ay! and condemned as a traitor.” At this the crowd 
roared approval. 

Checking the postmaster, who was for turning his horse’s 
head to the yard (the drunken patriot sat composedly in his 
saddle looking on, with the line round his wrist), Darnay 
said, as soon as he could make his voice heard: 

“Friends, you deceive yourselves, or you are deceived. I 
am not a traitor.” 

“He lies!” cried the smith. “He is a traitor since the 
decree. His life is forfeit to the people. His cursed life is 
not his own.” 


IN SECRET 


353 


At the instant when Darnay saw a rush in the eyes of the 
crowd, which another instant would have brought upon him, 
the postmaster turned his horse into the yard, the escort rode 
in close upon his horse’s flanks, and the postmaster shut and 
barred the crazy double gates. The farrier struck a blow 
. upon them with his hammer, and the crowd groaned; but 
I' no more was done 

“What is this decree that the smith spoke of?” Darnay 
asked the postmaster, when he had thanked him, and stood 
beside him in the yard. 

“Truly, a decree for selling the property of emigrants.” 1 

“When passed?” 

“On the fourteenth.” 

“The day I left England!” 

“Everybody says it is but one of several, and that there 
will be others—if there are not already—banishing all emi¬ 
grants, and condemning all to death who return. That is 
what he meant when he said your life was not your own.” 

“But there are no such decrees yet?” 

“What do I know!” said the postmaster, .shrugging his 
shoulders; “there may be, or there will be. It is all the same. 
Wnat would you have?” 

They rested on some straw in a loft until the middle of the 
night, and then rode forward again when all the town was 
asleep. Among the many wild changes observable on famil¬ 
iar things which made this wild ride unreal, not the least was 
the seeming rarity of sleep. After long and lonely spurring 
over dreary roads, they would come to a cluster of poor 
cottages, not steeped in darkness, but all glittering with 
lights, and would find the people, in a ghostly manner in the 

i This law provided that all 6migr6s be condemned to perpetuate banish¬ 
ment, loss of all civil rights, confiscation of property, and death within 
twenty-four hours after identification, if found on French soil. Read Cam¬ 
bridge Modern History , Vol. VIII, p. 502. 




354 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


dead of the night, circling hand in hand round a shrivelled 
tree of Liberty, or all drawn up together singing a Liberty 
song. Happily, however, there was sleep in Beauvais that 
night to help them out of it, and they passed on once more 
into solitude and loneliness: jingling through the untimely 
cold and wet, among impoverished fields that had yielded no 
fruits of the earth that year, diversified by the blackened re- ‘ 
mains of burnt houses, and by the sudden emergence from 
ambuscade, and sharp reining up across their way, of patriot 
patrols on the watch on all the roads. 

Daylight at last found them before the wall of Paris. The 
barrier was closed and strongly guarded when they rode up 
to it. 

“Where are the papers of this prisoner?” demanded a 
resolute-looking man in authority, who was summoned out 
by the guard. 

Naturally struck by the disagreeable word, Charles Darnay 
requested the speaker to take notice that he was a free 
traveller and French citizen, in charge of an escort which the 
disturbed state of the country had imposed upon him and 
which he had paid for. 

“Where,” repeated the same personage, without taking any 
heed of him whatever, “are the papers of this prisoner?” 

The drunken patriot had them in his cap, and produced 
them. Casting his eyes over Gabelle’s letter, the same per¬ 
sonage in authority showed some disorder and surprise, and 
looked at Darnay with a close attention. 

He left escort and escorted without saying a word, how¬ 
ever, and went into the guard-room; meanwhile, they sat upon 
their horses outside the gate. Looking about him while in 
this state of suspense, Charles Darnay observed that the 
gate was held by a mixed guard of soldiers and patriots, 
the latter far outnumbering the former; and that while ingress 


IN SECRET 


355 


into the city for peasants’ carts bringing in supplies, and for 
similar traffic and traffickers, was easy enough, egress, even 
for the homeliest people, was very difficult. A numerous 
medley of men and women, not to mention beasts and vehi¬ 
cles of various sorts, was waiting to issue forth; but, the pre¬ 
vious identification was so strict, that they filtered through 
the barrier very slowly. Some of these people knew their 
turn for examination to be so far off, that they lay down on 
the ground to sleep or smoke, while others talked together, 
or loitered about. The red cap and tricolour cockade were 
universal, both among men and women. 

When he had sat in his saddle some half-hour, taking note 
of these things, Darnay found himself confronted by the same 
man in authority, who directed the guard to open the barrier. 
Then he delivered to the escort, drunk and sober, a receipt for 
the escorted, and requested him to dismount. He did so, and 
the two patriots, leading his tired horse, turned and rode away 
without entering the city. 

He accompanied his conductor into a guard-room, smelling 
of common wine and tobacco, where certain soldiers and 
patriots, asleep and awake, drunk and sober, and in various 
neutral states between sleeping and waking, drunkenness and 
sobriety, were standing and lying about. The light in the 
guard-house, half derived from the waning oil-lamps of the 
night, and half from the overcast day, was in a correspond¬ 
ingly uncertain condition. Some registers were lying open on 
a desk and an officer of a coarse, dark aspect, presided over 
these. 

“Citizen Defarge,” said he to Darnay’s conductor, as he 
took a slip of paper to write on. “Is this the emigrant 
Evremonde?” 

“This is the man.” 

“Your age, Evremonde?” 


356 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


I 


“Thirty-seven.” 

“Married, Evremonde?” 

“Yes.” 

“Where married?” 

“In England.” 

“Without doubt. Where is your wife, Evremonde?” 

“In England.” 

“Without doubt. You are consigned, Evremonde, to t^ 
prison of La Force.” 

“Just Heaven!” exclaimed Darnay. “Under wnat law 
and for what offence?” 

The officer looked up from his slip of paper for a moment. 

“We have new laws, Evremonde, and new offences, since 
you were here.” He Said it with a hard smile, and went on 
writing. 

“I entreat you to observe that I have come here volun¬ 
tarily, in response to that written appeal of a fellow-country¬ 
man which lies before you. I demand no more than th? 
opportunity to do so without delay. Is not that my right? * 

“Emigrants have no rights, Evremonde,” was the stolit 
reply. The officer wrote until he had finished, read over to 
himself what he had written, sanded it, and handed it to 
Defarge, with the words “In secret.” 

Defarge motioned with the paper to the prisoner that *ie 
must accompany him. The prisoner obeyed, and a guard }f 
two armed patriots attended them. 

“Is it you,” said Defarge, in a low voice, as they went down 
the guard-house steps and turned into Paris, “who married 
the daughter of DoctorManette, once a prisoner in the Bas¬ 
tille that is no more?” 

“Yes,” replied Darnay, looking at him with surprise. 

“My name is Defarge, and I keep a wine-shop in the 


IN SECRET 


357 


Quarter Saint Antoine. Possibly you have heard of me.” 

“My wife came to your house to reclaim her father? Yes 1” 

The word “wife” seemed to serve as a gloomy reminder to 
Defarge, to say with sudden impatience, “In the name of that 
sharp female newly-born, and called La Guillotine, why did 
you come to France?” 

“You heard me say why, a minute ago. Do you not be¬ 
lieve it is the truth?” 

“A bad truth for you/ said Defarge, speaking with knitted 
brows, and looking straight before him. 

“Indeed I am lost here. All here is so unprecedented, so 
changed, so sudden and unfair, that I am absolutely lost. 
Will you render me a little help?” 

“None.” Defarge spoke, always looking straight before 
him. 

“Will you answer me a single question?” 

“Perhaps. According to its nature. You can say what 
it is.” 

“In this prison that I am going to so unjustly, shall I have 
some free communication with the world outside?” 

“You will see.” 

“I am not to be buried there, prejudged, and without any 
means of presenting my case?” 

“You will see. But, what then? Other people have been 
similarly buried in worse prisons, before now.” 

“But never by me, Citizen Defarge.” 

Defarge glanced darkly at him for answer, and walked on in 
a steady and set silence. The deeper he sank into this silence, 
the fainter hope there was—or so Darnay thought—of his 
softening in any slight degree. He, therefore, made haste 
to say: * 

“It is of the utmost importance to me (you know, Citizen, 
even better than I, of how much importance), that I should be 


358 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


able to communicate to Mr. Lorry of Tellson’s Bank, an 
English gentleman who is now in Paris, the simple fact, with¬ 
out comment, that I have been thrown into the prison of La 
Force. Will you cause that to be done for me?” 

“I will do,” Defarge doggedly rejoined, “nothing for you. 
My duty is to my country and the People. I am the sworn 
servant of both, against you. I will do nothing for you.” 

Charles Darnay felt it hopeless to entreat him further, and 
his pride was touched besides. As they walked on in silence, 
he could not but see how used the people were to the spectacle 
of prisoners passing along the streets. The very children 
scarcely noticed him. A few passers turned their heads, and 
a few shook their fingers at him as an aristocrat; otherwise, 
that a man in good clothes should be going to prison, was no 
more remarkable than that a labourer in working clothes 
should be going to work. In one narrow, dark, and dirty 
street through which they passed, an excited orator, mounted 
on a stool, was addressing an excited audience on the crimes 
against the people, of the king and the royal family. The 
few words that he caught from this man’s lips, first made it 
known to Charles Darnay that the king was in prison, and 
that the foreign ambassadors had one and all left Paris. 1 On 
the road (except at Beauvais) he had heard absolutely 
nothing. The escort and the universal watchfulness had 
completely isolated him. 

That he had fallen among far greater dangers than those 
which had developed themselves when he left England, he of 
course knew now. That perils had thickened about him fast, 
and might thicken faster and faster yet, he of course knew 
now. He could not but admit to himself that he might not 

i The royal family were imprisoned in the Temple on August 13, 1792. 
Lord Gower, the English ambassador, at once demanded his passports. 
His example was followed by the representatives of other governments. 
See Carlyle, History of the French Revolution, Part II, Book VI, Chap. vin. 


IN SECRET 


359 


have made this journey, if he could have foreseen the events 
of a few days. And yet his misgivings were not so dark as, 
imagined by the light of this later time, they would appear. 
Troubled as the future was, it was the unknown future, and 
in its obscurity there was ignorant hope. The horrible mas¬ 
sacre, days and nights long, which, within a few rounds of the 
clock, was to set a great mark of blood upon the blessed gar¬ 
nering time of harvest, was as far out of his knowledge as if 
it had been a hundred thousand years away. The “sharp 
female newly-born, and called La Guillotine,” was hardly 
known to him, or to the generality of people, by name. The 
frightful deeds that were to be soon done, were probably un¬ 
imagined at that time in the brains of the doers. How could 
they have a place in the shadowy conceptions of a gentle 
mind? 

Of unjust treatment in detention and hardship, and in cruel 
separation from his wife and child, he foreshadowed the likeli¬ 
hood, or the certainty; but, beyond this, he dreaded nothing 
distinctly. With this on his mind, which was enough to 
carry into a dreary prison court-yard, he arrived at the prison 
of La Force. 

A man with a bloated face opened the strong wicket, to 
whom Defarge presented “The Emigrant Evremonde.” 

“What the Devil! How many more of them!” exclaimed 
the man with the bloated face. 

Defarge took his receipt without noticing the exclamation, 
and withdrew, with his two fellow-patriots. 

“What the Devil, I say again!” exclaimed the gaoler, left 
with his w r ife. “How many more!” 

The gaoler’s wife, being provided with no answer to the 
question, merely replied, “One must have patience, my dear!” 
Three turnkeys who entered responsive to a bell she rang, 
echoed the sentiment, and one added, “For the love of Liber- 


360 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


ty;” which sounded in that place like an inappropriate con¬ 
clusion. 

The prison of La Force was a gloomy prison, dark and 
filthy, and with a horrible smell of foul sleep in it. Extra¬ 
ordinary how soon the noisome flavour of imprisoned sleep 
becomes manifest in all such places that are ill cared for! 

“In secret, too,” grumbled the gaoler, looking at the 
written paper. “As if I was not already full to bursting!” 

He stuck the paper on a file, in an ill-humour, and Charles 
Darnay awaited his further pleasure for half an hour: some¬ 
times, pacing to and fro in the strong arched room: some¬ 
times, resting on a stone seat: in either case detained to be 
imprinted on the memory of the chief and his subordinates. 

“Come!” said the chief, at length taking up his keys, “come 
with me, emigrant.” 

Through the dismal prison twilight, his new charge accom¬ 
panied him by corridor and staircase, many doors clanging 
and locking behind them, until they came into a large, low, 
vaulted chamber, crowded with prisoners of both se^ces. The 
women were seated at a long table, reading and writing, 
knitting, sewing, and embroidering; the men were for the 
most part standing behind their chairs, or lingering up and 
down the room. 

In the instinctive association of prisoners with shameful 
crime and disgrace, the new-comer recoiled from this com¬ 
pany. But the crowning unreality of his long unreal ride, 
was, their all at once rising to receive him, with every refine¬ 
ment of manner known to the time, and with all the engag¬ 
ing graces and courtesies of life. 

So strangely clouded were these refinements by the prison 
manners and gloom, so spectral did they become in the in¬ 
appropriate squalor and misery through which they were seen, 
that Charles Darnay seemed to stand in a company of the 


IN SECRET 


361 


dead. Ghosts all! The ghost of beauty, the ghost of state¬ 
liness, the ghost of elegance, the ghost of pride, the ghost of 
frivolity, the ghost of wit, the ghost of youth, the ghost of age, 
all waiting their dismissal from the desolate shore, all turning 
on him eyes that were changed by the death they had died in 
coming there. 

It struck him motionless. The gaoler standing at his side, 
and the other gaolers moving about, who would have been 
well enough as to appearance in the ordinary exercise of their 
functions, looked so extravagantly coarse contrasted with 
sorrowing mothers and blooming daughters who were there— 
with the apparitions of the coquette, the young beauty, and 
the mature woman delicately bred—that the inversion of all 
experience and likelihood which the scene of shadows pre¬ 
sented, was heightened to its utmost. Surely, ghosts all. 
Surely, the long unreal ride some progress of disease that 
had brought him to these gloomy shades! 

"In the name of the assembled companions in misfortune,” 
said a gentleman of courtly appearance and address, coming 
forward, “I have the honour of giving you welcome to La 
Force, and of condoling with you on the calamity that has 
brought you among us. May it soon terminate happily! It 
would be an impertinence elsewhere, but it is not so here, to 
ask your name and condition?” 

Charles Darnay roused himself, and gave the required 
information, in words as suitable as he could find. 

"But I hope,” said the gentleman, following the chief 
gaoler with his eyes, who moved across the room, “that you 
are not in secret?” 

“I do not understand the meaning of the term, but I have 
heard them say so.” 

“Ah, what a pity! We so much regret it! But take 
courage; several members of our society have been in secret. 


362 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


at first, and it has lasted but a short time.” Then he added, 
raising his voice, “I grieve to inform the society—in secret.” 

There was a murmur of commiseration as Charles Darnay 
crossed the room to a grated door where the gaoler awaited 
him, and many voices—among which, the soft and com¬ 
passionate voices of women were conspicuous—gave him good 
wishes and encouragement. He turned at the grated door, 
to render the thanks of his heart; it closed under the gaoler’s 
hand; and the apparitions vanished from his sight for ever. 

The wicket opened on a stone staircase, leading upward. 
When they had ascended forty steps (the prisoner of half an 
hour already counted them), the gaoler opened a low black 
door, and they passed into a solitary cell. It struck cold and 
damp, but was not dark. 

“Yours,” said the gaoler. 

“Why am I confined alone?” 

“How do I know!” 

“lean buy pen, ink, and paper?” 

“Such are not my orders. You will be visited, and can ask 
then. At present, you may buy your food, and nothing 
more.” 

There were in the cell, a chair, a table, and a straw mat¬ 
tress. As the gaoler made a general inspection of these ob¬ 
jects, and of the four walls, before going out, a wandering 
fancy wandered through the mind of the prisoner leaning 
against the wall opposite to him, that this gaoler was so un- 
wholesomely bloated, both in face and person, as to look like 
a man who had been drowned and filled with water. When 
the gaoler was gone, he thought in the same wandering way, 
“Now am I left, as if I were dead.” Stopping then, to look 
down at the mattress, he turned from it with a sick feeling, 
and thought, “And here in these crawling creatures is the 
first condition of the body after death.” 



IN SECRET 


363 


“Five paces by four and a half, five paces by four and a 
half, five paces by four and a half.” The prisoner walked to 
and fro in his cell, counting its measurement, and the roar of 
the city arose like muffled drums with a wild swell of voices 
added to them. “He made shoes, he made shoes, he made 
shoes.” The prisoner counted the measurement again, and 
paced faster, to draw his mind with him from that latter 
repetition. “The ghosts that vanished when the wicket 
closed. There was one among them, the appearance of a 
lady dressed in black, who was leaning in the embrasure of a 
window, and she had a light shining upon her golden hair, and , 
she looked like**** Let us ride on again, for God’s sake, * 
through the illuminated villages with the people all awake! 
**** He ma de shoes, he made shoes, he made shoes. **** 
Five paces by four and a half.” With such scraps tossing 
and rolling upward from the depths of his mind, the prisoner 
walked faster and faster, obstinately counting and counting: 
and the roar of the city changed to this extent—that it still 
rolled in like muffled drums, but with the wail of voices that 
he knew, in the swell that rose above them. 

\ 


CHAPTER II. 


THE GRINDSTONE 

'JL’ellson’s Bank, established in the Saint Germain Quar¬ 
ter of Paris, was in a wing of a large house, approached by a 
tourt-yard and shut off from the street by a high wall and a 
strong gate. The house belonged to a great nobleman who 
had lived in it until he made a flight from the troubles, in his 
own cook’s dress, and got across the borders. A mere beast 
of the chase flying from hunters, he was still in his metemp¬ 
sychosis no other than the same Monseigneur, the prepara¬ 
tion of whose chocolate for whose lips had once occupied 
three strong men besides the cook in question.* 

Monseigneur gone, and the three strong men absolving 
themselves from the sin of having drawn his high wages, by 
being more than ready and willing to cut his throat on the 
altar of the dawning Republic one and indivisible of Liberty,- 
Equality, Fraternity, or Death,Monseigneur’s house had been 
first sequestrated, and then confiscated. For, all things 
moved so fast, and decree followed decree with that fierce 
precipitation, that now upon the third night of the autumn 
month of September, patriot emissaries of the law were in 
possession of Monseigneur’s house, and had marked it with 
the tricolour, and were drinking brandy in its state apart¬ 
ments. 

A place of business in London like Tellson’s place of busi¬ 
ness in Paris, would soon have driven the House out'of its 
mind and into the Gazette. . For, what would staid British 
responsibility and respectability have said to orange-trees 
in boxes in a Bank court-yard, and even to a Cupid over the 


THE GRINDSTONE 


365 


counter? Yet such things were. Tellson’s had whitewashed 
the Cupid, but he was still to be seen on the ceiling, in the 
coolest linen, aiming (as he very often does) at money from 
morning to night. Bankruptcy must inevitably have come of 
this young Pagan, in Lombard-street, London, and also of a 
curtained alcove in the rear of the immortal boy, and also of 
a looking-glass let into the wall, and also of clerks not at all 
old, who danced in public on the slightest provocation. Yet, 
a French Tellson s could get on with these things exceedingly 
well, and, as long as the times held together, no man had 
taken fright at them, and drawn out his money. 

What money would be drawn out of Tellson’s henceforth, 
and what would lie there, lost and forgotten; what plate and 
jewels would tarnish in Tellson’s hiding-places, while the 
depositors rusted in prisons, and when they should have 
violently perished; how many accounts with Tellson’s never 
to be balanced in this world, must be carried over into the 
next; no man could have said, that night, any more than Mr. 
Jarvis Lorry could, though he thought heavily of these ques¬ 
tions. He sat by a newly-lighted wood fire (the blighted and 
unfruitful year was prematurely cold), and on his honest and 
courageous face there was a deeper shade than the pendent 
lamp could throw, or any object in the room distortedly re¬ 
flect—a shade of horror. 

He occupied rooms in the Bank, in his fidelity to the House 
of which he had grown to be a part, like strong root-ivy. It 
chanced that they derived a kind of security from the pa¬ 
triotic occupation of the main building, but the true-hearted 
old gentleman never calculated about that. All such cir¬ 
cumstances were indifferent to him, so that he did his duty. 
On the opposite side of the court-yard, under a colonnade 
was extensive standing for carriages—where, indeed, some 
carriages of Monseigneur yet stood. Against two of the 


• 366 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


pillars were fastened two great flaring flambeaux, and in the 
light of these, standing out in the open air, was a large 
grindstone: a roughly mounted thing which appeared to have 
hurriedly been brought there from some neighbouring smithy, 
or other workshop. Rising and looking out of window at 
these harmless objects, Mr. Lorry shivered and retired to his 
seat by the fire. He had opened, not only the glass window, 
but the lattice blind outside it, and he had closed both again, 
and he shivered through his frame. 

From the streets beyond the high wall and the strong gate, 
there came the usual night hum of the city, with now and 
then an indescribable ring in it, weird and unearthly, as if 
some unwonted sounds of a terrible nature were going up to 
Heaven. 

“Thank God,” said Mr. Lorry, clasping his hands, “that 
no one near and dear to me is in this dreadful town to-night. 
May He have mercy on all who are in danger!” 

Soon afterwards, the bell at the great gate sounded, and he 
thought, “They have come back!” and sat listening. But, 
there was no loud irruption into the court-yard, as he had 
expected, and he heard the gate clash again, and all was quiet. 

The nervousness and dread that were upon him inspired 
that vague uneasiness respecting the Bank, which a great 
change would naturally awaken, with such feelings roused. 
It was well guarded, and he got up to go among the trusty 
people who were watching it, when his door suddenly opened, 
and two figures rushed in, at sight of which he fell back in 
amazement. 

Lucie and her father! Lucie with her arms stretched out 
to him, and with that old look of earnestness so concentrated 
and intensified, that it seemed as though it had been stamped 
upon her face expressly to give force and power to it in this 
one passage of her life. 




THE GRINDSTONE 


367 


“What is this?” cried Mr. Lorry, breathless and confused. 
“What is the matter? Lucie! Manette! What has hap¬ 
pened? What has brought you here? What is it?” 

With the look fixed upon him, in her paleness and wildness, 
she panted out in his arms, imploringly, “O my dear friend! 
My husband!” 

“Your husband, Lucie?” 

“Charles.” 

“What of Charles?” 

“Here.” 

“Here, in Paris?” 

“Has been here some days—three or four—I don’t know 
how many—I can’t collect my thoughts. An errand of 
generosity brought him here unknown to us; he was stopped 
at the barrier, and sent to prison.” 

The old man uttered an irrepressible cry. Almost at the 
same moment, the bell of the great gate rang again, and a 
loud noise of feet and voices came pouring into the court-yard. 

“What is that noise?” said the Doctor, turning towards 
the window. 

“Don’t look!” cried Mr. Lorry. “Don’t look out! Man¬ 
ette, for your life, don’t touch the blind!” 

The Doctor turned, with his hand upon the fastening of 
the window, and said, with a cool, bold smile: 

“My dear friend, I have a charmed life in this city. I have 
been a Bastille prisoner. There is no patriot in Paris—in 
Paris? In France—who, knowing me to have been a prisoner 
in the Bastille, would touch me, except to overwhelm me with 
embraces, or carry me in triumph. My old pain has given 
me a power that has brought us through the barrier, and 
gained us news of Charles there, and brought us here. I 
knew it would be so; I knew I could help Cha-les out of all 



368 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


danger; I told Lucie so.—What is that noise?” His hand was 
again upon the window. 

“Don’t look!” cried Mr. Lorry, absolutely desperate. “No, 
Lucie, my dear, nor you!” He got his arm round her, and 
held her. “Don’t be so terrified, my love. I solemnly swear 
to you that I know of no harm having happened to Charles; 
that I had no suspicion even of his being in this fatal place. 
What prison is he in?” 

“La Force!” 

“La Force? Lucie, my child, if ever you were brave and 
serviceable in your life—and you were always both—you will 
compose yourself now, to do exactly as I bid you; for more 
depends upon it than you can think, or I can say. There is no 
help for you in any action on your part to-night; you cannot 
possibly stir out. I say this, because what I must bid you to 
do for Charles’s sake, is the hardest thing to do of all. You 
must instantly be obedient, still, and quiet. You must let 
me put you in a room at the back here. You must leave 
your father and me alone for two minutes, and as there are 
Life and Death in the world you must not delay.” 

“I will be submissive to you. I see in your face that you 
know I can do nothing else than this. I know you are true.” 

The old man kissed her, and hurried her into his room, and 
turned the key; then came hurrying back to the Doctor, and 
opened the window and partly opened the blind, and put his 
hand upon the Doctor’s arm, and looked out with him into 
the court-yard. 

Looked out upon a throng of men and women: not enough 
in number, or near enough, to fill the court-yard: not more 
than forty or fifty in all. The people in possession of the 
house had let them in at the gate, and they had rushed in to 
work at the grindstone; it had evidently been set up there for 
their purpose, as in a convenient and retired spot. 


THE GRINDSTONE 


369 


But, such awful workers, and such awful work ! 1 

The grindstone had a double handle, and, turning at it 
madly were two men, whose faces, as their long hair flapped 
back when the whirlings of the grindstone brought their 
faces up, were more horrible and cruel than the visages of the 
wildest savages in their most barbarous disguise. False 
eyebrows and false moustaches were stuck upon them, and 
their hideous countenances were all bloody and sweaty, and 
all awry with howling, and all staring and glaring with beastly 
excitement and want of sleep. As these ruffians turned and 
turned, their matted locks now flung forward over their eyes, 
now flung backward over their necks, some women held wine 
to their mouths that they might drink; and what with drop¬ 
ping blood, and what with dropping wine, and what with the 
stream of sparks struck out of the stone, all their wicked 
atmosphere seemed gore and fire. The eye could not detect 
one creature in the group free from the smear of blood. 
Shouldering one another to get next at the sharpening-stone, 
were men stripped to the waist, with the stain all over their 
limbs and bodies; men in all sorts of rags, with the stain upon 
those rags; men devilishly set off with spoils of women’s 
lace and silk and ribbon, with the stain dyeing those trifles 
through and through. Hatchets, knives, bayonets, swords, all 
brought to be sharpened, were all red with it. Some of the 
hacked swords were tied to the wrists of those who carried 
them, with strips of linen and fragments of dress; ligatures 
various in kind, but all deep of the one colour. And as the 
frantic wielders of these weapons snatched them from the 
stream of sparks and tore away into the streets, the same red 
hue was red in their frenzied eyes;—eyes which any unbru¬ 
talised beholder would have given twenty years of life, to 
petrify with a well-directed gun. 

1 This whole passage was suggested by a few words in Carlyle’s History 
of the French Revolution. See Part III, Book I, Chap, iv, p. 37. 


370 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


All this was seen in a moment, as the vision of a drowning 
man, or of any human creature at any very great pass, could 
see a world if it were there. They drew back from the win¬ 
dow, and the Doctor looked for explanation in his friend’s 
ashy face. 

“They are,” Mr. Lorry whispered the words, glancing fear¬ 
fully round at the locked room, “murdering the prisoners . 1 
If you are sure of what you say; if you really have the power 
you think you have—as I believe you have—make yourself 
known to these devils, and get taken to La Force. It may 
be too late, I don’t know, but let it not be a minute later!” 

Doctor Manette pressed his hand, hastened bareheaded 
out of the room, and was in the court-yard when Mr. Lorry 
regained the blind. 

His streaming white hair, his remarkable face, and the 
impetuous confidence of his manner, as .he put the weapons 
aside like water, carried him in an instant to the heart 
of the concourse at the stone. For a few moments there 
was a pause, and a hurry, and a murmur, and the unintel¬ 
ligible sound of his voice; and then Mr. Lorry saw him, sur¬ 
rounded by all, and in the midst of a line of twenty men long, all 
linked shoulder to shoulder, and hand to shoulder, hurried 
out with cries of—“Live the Bastille prisoner! Help for 
the Bastille prisoner’s kindred in La Force! Room for the 
Bastille prisoner in front there! Save the prisoner E vremonde 
at La Force!” and a thousand answering shouts. 

He closed the lattice again with a fluttering heart, closed 
the window and the curtain, hastened to Lucie, and told her 
that her father was assisted by the people, and gone in search 
of her husband. He found her child and Miss Pross with 
her; but, it never occurred to him to be surprised by their 

i Read The French Revolution , by H. Morse Stephens, Vol. II, Chap. iv. 


THE GRINDSTONE 


3ld 

appearance until a long time afterwards, when he sat watch¬ 
ing them in such quiet as the night knew. 

Lucie had, by that time, fallen into a stupor on the floor 
at his feet, clinging to his hand. Miss Pross had laid the 
child down on his own bed, and her head had gradually 
fallen on the pillow beside her pretty charge. O the long, 
long night, with the moans of the poor wife! And O the 
long, long night, with no return of her father and no tidings! 

Twice more in the darkness the bell at the great gate 
sounded, and the irruption was repeated, and the grindstone 
whirled and spluttered. “What is it?” cried Lucie, affrighted. 
“Hush! The soldiers’ swords are sharpened there,” said Mr. 
Lorry. “The place is national property now, and used as a 
kind of armoury, my love.” 

Twice more in all; but the last spell of work was feeble 
and fitful. Soon afterwards the day began to dawn, and he 
softly detached himself from the clasping hand, and cau¬ 
tiously looked out again. A man, so besmeared that he 
might have been a sorely wounded soldier creeping back to 
consciousness on a field of slain, was rising from the pavement 
by the side of the grindstone, and looking about him with a 
vacant air. Shortly, this worn-out murderer descried in the 
imperfect light one of the carriages of Monseigneur, and, 
staggering to that gorgeous vehicle, climbed in at the door, 
and shut himself up to take his rest on its dainty cushions. 

The great grindstone, Earth, had turned when Mr. Lorry 
looked out again, and the sun was red on the court-yard. 
But the lesser grindstone stood alone there in the calm 
morning air, with a red upon it that the sun had never given, 
and would never take away. 


CHAPTER III. 

THE SHADOW 

One of the first considerations which arose in the business 
mind of Mr. Lorry when business hours came round, was 
this:—that he had no right to imperilTellson’s by sheltering 
the wife of an emigrant prisoner under the Bank roof. His 
own possessions, safety, life, he would have hazarded for^ 
Lucie and her child, without a moment s demur; but the 
great trust he held was not his own, and as to that business 
charge he was a strict man of business. 

At first, his mind reverted to Defarge, and he thought of 
finding out the wine-shop again and taking counsel with its 
master in reference to the safest dwelling-place in the dis¬ 
tracted state of the city. But, the same consideration that 
suggested him, repudiated him; he lived in the most violent 
Quarter, and doubtless was influential there, and deep in its 
dangerous workings. 

Noon coming, and the Doctor not returning, and every 
minute’s delay tending to compromise Tellson’s, Mr. Lorry 
advised with Lucie. She said that her father had spoken of 
hiring a lodging for a short term, in that Quarter, near the 
Banking-house. As there was no business objection to this, 
and as he foresaw that even if it were all well with Charles, 
and he were to be released, he could not hope to leave the 
city, Mr. Lorry went out in quest of such a lodging and 
found a suitable one, high up in a removed by-street where 
the closed blinds in all the other windows of a high melan¬ 
choly square of buildings marked deserted homes. 

To this lodging he at once removed Lucie and her child. 

372 - 


THE SHADOW 


373 


and Miss Pross: giving them what comfort he could, and 
much more than he had himself. He left Jerry with them, 
as a figure to fill a doorway that would bear considerable 
knocking * on the head, and returned to his occupations. 
A disturbed and doleful mind he brought to bear upon 
them, and slowly and heavily the day lagged on with him. 

It wore itself out, and wore him out with it, until the Bank 
closed. He was again alone in his room of the previous 
night, considering what to do next, when he heard a foot 
upon the stair. In a few moments, a man stood in his 
presence, who, with a keenly observant look at him, addressed 
him by his name. 

“Your servant,” said Mr. Lorry. “Do you know me?” 

He was a strongly made man with dark curling hair, from 
forty-five to fifty years of age. For answer he repeated, 
without any change of emphasis, the words: 

“Do you know me?” 

“I have seen you somewhere.” 

“Perhaps at my wine-shop?” 

Much interested and agitated, Mr. Lorry said: “You come 
from Doctor Manette?” 

“Yes. I come from Doctor Manette.” 

“And what says he? What does he send me?” 

Defarge gave into his anxious hand, an open scrap of paper- 
It bore the words in the Doctor’s writing: 

“Charles is safe, but I cannot safely leave this place yet. 
I have obtained the favour that the bearer has a short note 
from Charles to his wife. Let the bearer see his wife.” 

It was dated from La Force, within an hour. 

“Will you accompany me,” said Mr. Lorry, joyfully re¬ 
lieved after reading this note aloud, “to where his wife re¬ 
sides?” 

“Yes,” returned Defarge. 


374 A TALE OF TWO CITIES 

Scarcely noticing as yet, in what a curiously reserved and ; 
mechanical way Defarge spoke, Mr. Lorry put on his hat and 
they went down into the court-yard. There they found two 
women; one knitting. . 1 

“Madame Defarge, surely!” said Mr. Lorry, who had left 
her in exactly the same attitude some seventeen years ago. 

“It is she,” observed her husband. 

“Does madame go with us?” inquired Mr. Lorry, seeing 
that she moved as they moved. 

“Yes. That she may be able to recognise the faces and 
know the persons. It is for their safety.” 

Beginning to be struck by Defarge’s manner, Mr. Lorry 
looked dubiously at him, and led the way. Both the women 
followed; the second woman being The Vengeance. 

They passed through the intervening streets as quickly as 
they might, ascended the staircase of the new domicile, were 
admitted by Jerry, and found Lucie weeping, alone. She was 
thrown into a transport by the tidings Mr. Lorry gave her 
of her husband, &nd clasped the hand that delivered his note 
—little thinking what it had been doing near him in the 
night, and might, but for a chance, have done to him. 

“Dearest,— Take courage. I am well, and your father 
has influence around me. You cannot answer this. Kiss 
our child for me.” 

That was all the writing. It was so much, however, to 
her who received it, that she turned from Defarge to his wife, 
and kissed one of the hands that knitted. It was a passion¬ 
ate, loving, thankful, womanly action, but the hand made no 
response—dropped cold and heavy, and took to its knitting 
again. 

There was something in its touch that gave Lucie a check. 
She stopped in the act of putting the note in her bosom, and, 
with her hands yet at her neck, looked terrified at Madame 


THE SHADOW 


375 


Defarge. Madame Defarge met the lifted eyebrows and 
forehead with a cold, impassive stare. 

“My dear,” said Mr. Lorry, striking in to explain; “there 
are frequent risings in the streets; and, although it is not 
likely they will ever trouble you, Madame Defarge wishes to 
see those whom she has the power to protect at such times, 
to the end that she may know them—that she may identify 
them. I believe,” said Mr. Lorry, rather halting in his re¬ 
assuring words, as the stony manner of all the three impressed 
itself upon him more and more, “I state the case, Citizen 
Defarge?” 

Defarge looked gloomily at his wife, and gave no other 
answer than a rough sound of acquiescence. 

“You had better, Lucie,” said Mr. Lorry, doing all he 
could to propitiate, by tone and manner, “have the dear 
child here, and our good Pross. Our good Pross, Defarge, is 
an English lady and knows no French.” 

The lady in question, whose rooted conviction that she was 
more than a match for any foreigner, was not to be shaken 
by distress and danger, appeared with folded arms, and 
observed in English to The Vengeance, whom her eyes first 
encountered, “Well, I am sure, Boldface! I hope you are 
pretty well!” She also bestowed a British cough on Madame 
Defarge; but neither of the two took much heed of her. 

“Is that his child?” said Madame Defarge, stopping in 
her work for the first time, and pointing her knitting-needle 
at little Lucie as if it were the finger of Fate. 

“Yes, madame,” answered Mr. Lorry; “this is our poor 
prisoner’s darling daughter, and only child.” 

The shadow attendant on Madame Defarge and her party 
seemed to fall so threatening and dark on the child, that her 
mother instinctively kneeled on the ground beside her, and 
held her to her breast. The shadow attendant on Madame 




376 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Defarge aM her party seemed then to fall, threatening and 
dark, on both the mother and the child. 

“It is enough, my husband,” said Madame Defarge. “I 
nave seen them. We may go.” 

But the suppressed manner had enough of menace in it 
—not visible and presented, but indistinct and withheld—to 
alarm Lucie into saying, as she laid her appealing hand on 
Madame Defarge’s dress: 

“You will be good to my poor husband. You will do 
him no harm. You will help me to see him if you can?” | 

“Your husband is not my business here,”returned Madame: 
Defarge, looking down at her with perfect composure. “It 
is the daughter of your father who is my business here.” 

“For my sake, then, be merciful to my husband. For my 
child’s sake! She will put her hands together and pray you 
to be merciful. We are more afraid of you than of these 
others.” 

Madame Defarge received it as a compliment, and looked 
at her husband. Defarge, who had been uneasily biting his 
thumb-nail and looking at her, collected his face into a 
sterner expression. 

“What is it that your husband says in that little letter?” 
asked Madame Defarge, with a lowering smile. “Influence; 
he says something touching influence?” 

“That my father,” said Lucie, hurriedly taking the paper 
from her breast, but with her alarmed eyes on her questioner 
and not on it, “has much influence around him.” 

“Surely it will release him!” said Madame Defarge. “Let 
it do so.” 

“As a wife and mother,” cried Lucie, most earnestly, “I im¬ 
plore you to have pity on me and not to exercise any power 
that you possess, against my innocent husband, but to use 


THE SHADOW 


377 


it in his behalf. O sister-woman, think of me. As a wife 
and mother!” 

Madame Defarge looked, coldly as ever, at the suppliant, 
and-said, turning to her friend The Vengeance: 

“The wives and mothers we have been used to see, since 
we were as little as this child, and much less, have not been 
greatly considered? We have known their husbands and 
fathers laid in prison and kept from them, often enough? 
All our lives, we have seen our sister-women suffer, in 
themselves and in their children, poverty, nakedness, hunger, 
thirst, sickness, misery, oppression and neglect of all kinds?” 

“We have seen nothing else,” returned The Vengeance. 

“We have borne this a long time,” said Madame Defarge, 
turning her eyes again upon Lucie. “Judge you! Is it 
likely that the trouble of one wife and mother would be much 
to us now?” 

She resumed her knitting and went out. The Vengeance 
followed. Defarge went last, and closed the door. 

“Courage, my dear Lucie,” said Mr. Lorry, as he raised 
her. “Courage, courage! So far all goes well with us— 
much, much better than it has of late gone with many poor 
souls. Cheer up, and have a thankful heart.” 

“I am not thankless, I hope, but that dreadful woman 
seems to throw a shadow on me and on all my hopes.” 

“Tut, tut!” said Mr. Lorry; “what is this despondency 
in the brave little breast? A shadow indeed! No substance 
in it, Lucie.” 

But the shadow of the manner of these Defarges was dark 
upon himself, for all that, and in his secret mind it troubled 
him greatly. 


CHAPTER TV. 

CALM IN STORM 


Doctor Manette did not return until the morning of the j 
fourth day of his absence. So much of what had happened j 
in that dreadful time as could be kept from the knowledge 
of Lucie was so well concealed from her, that not until 
long afterwards, when France and she were far apart, did 
she know that eleven hundred defenceless prisoners of both 
sexes and all ages had been killed by the populace; that 
four days and nights had been darkened by this deed of 
horror; and that the air around her had been tainted by 
the slain. She only knew that there had been an attack 
upon the prisons, that all political prisoners had been in 
danger, and that some had been dragged out by the crowd 
and murdered. 

To Mr. Lorry, the Doctor communicated under an injunc¬ 
tion of secrecy on which he had no need to dwell, that the 
crowd had taken him through a scene of carnage to the 
prison of La Force. That, in the prison he had found a self- 
appointed Tribunal 1 sitting, before which the prisoners were 
brought singly, and by which they were rapidly ordered to be 
put forth to be massacred, or to be released, or (in a few 
cases) to be sent back to their cells. That, presented by his 
conductors to this Tribunal, he had announced himself by 
name and profession as having been for eighteen years a 
secret and unaccused prisoner in the Bastille; that one of 
the body so sitting in judgment had risen and identified him, 
and that this man was Defarge. 

1 Read Carlyle, History of the French Revolution , Part III, Book I, Chap. 
IV, p. 35. 


378 




CALM IN STORM 


379 


That, hereupon, he had ascertained, through the registers 
on the table, that his son-in-law was among the living 
prisoners, and had pleaded hard to the Tribunal—of whom 
some members were asleep and some awake, some dirty with 
murder and some clean, some sober and some not—for his 
life and liberty. That, in the first frantic greetings lavished 
on himself as a notable sufferer under the overthrown system, 
it had been accorded to him to have Charles Darnay brought 
before the lawless Court, and examined. That, he seemed 
on the point of being at once released, when the tide in his 
favour met with some unexplained check (not intelligible to 
the Doctor), which led to a few words of secret conference. 
That, the man sitting as President had then informed Doctor 
Manette that the prisoner must remain in custody, but 
should, for his sake, be held inviolate in safe custody. That, 
immediately, on a signal, the prisoner was removed to the 
interior of the prison again; but, that he, the Doctor, had 
then so strongly pleaded for permission to remain and assure 
himself that his son-in-law was, through no malice or mis¬ 
chance, delivered to the concourse whose murderous yells 
outside the gate had often drowned the proceedings, that he 
had obtained the permission, and had remained in that Hall 
cf Blood until the danger was over. 

The sights he had seen there, with brief snatches of food 
and sleep by intervals, shall remain untold. The mad joy 
over the prisoners who were saved, had astounded him 
scarcely less than the mad ferocity against those who were 
cut to pieces. One prisoner there was, he said, who had 
been discharged into the street free, but at whom a mistaken 
savage had thrust a pike as he passed out. Being besought 
to go to him and dress the wound, the Doctor had passed 
out at the same gate, and had found him in the arms of 
a company of Samaritans, who were seated on the bodies 



38a 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


of their victims. With an inconsistency as monstrous as 
anything in this awful nightmare, they had helped the j 
healer, and tended the wounded man with the gentlest solici¬ 
tude—had made a litter for him and escorted him carefully 
from the spot—had then caught up their weapons and 
plunged anew into a butchery so dreadful, that the Doctor 
had covered his eyes with his hands, and swooned away in 
the midst of it. 

As Mr. Lorry received these confidences, and as he watched 
the face of his friend now sixty-two years of age, a misgiving 
arose within him that such dread experiences would revive the 
old danger. But he had never seen his friend in his pres¬ 
ent aspect: he had never at all known him in his present j 
character. For the first time the Doctor felt, now, that his 
suffering was strength and power. For the first time he felt 
that in that sharp fire, he had slowly forged the iron which 
could break the prison door of his daughter’s husband, and 
deliver him. “It all tended to a good end, my friend; it 
was not mere waste and ruin. As my beloved child was 
helpful in restoring me to myself, I will be helpful now in 
restoring the dearest part of herself to her; by the aid of 
Heaven I will do it!” Thus, Doctor Manette. And when 
Jarvis Lorry saw the kindled eyes, the resolute face, the calm 
strong look and bearing of the man whose life always seemed 
to him to have been stopped, like a clock, for so many years, 
and then set going again with an energy which had lain dor¬ 
mant during the cessation of its usefulness, he believed. 

Greater things than the Doctor had at that time to con¬ 
tend with, would have yielded before his persevering purpose. 
While he kept himself in his place, as a physician, whose 
business was with all degrees of mankind, bond and free, 
rich and poor, bad and good, he used his personal influence so 
wisely, that he was soon the inspecting physician of three 



CALM IN STORM 


381 


prisons, and among them of La Force. He could now assure 
Lucie that her husband was no longer confined alone, but 
was mixed with the general body of prisoners; he saw. her 
husband weekly, and brought sweet messages to her, straight 
from his lips; sometimes her husband himself sent a letter to 
her (though never by the Doctor’s hand), but she was not 
permitted to write to him: for, among the many wild sus¬ 
picions of plots in the prisons, the wildest of all pointed at 
emigrants who were known to have made friends or perma¬ 
nent connections abroad. 

This new life of the Doctor’s was an anxious life, no doubt; 
still, the sagacious Mr. Lorry saw that there was a new sus¬ 
taining pride in it. Nothing unbecoming tinged the pride; 
it was a natural and worthy one; but he observed it as a 
curiosity. The Doctor knew, that up to that time, his im¬ 
prisonment had been associated in the minds of his daughter 
and his friend, with his personal affliction, deprivation, and 
weakness. Now that this was changed, and he knew himself 
to be invested through that old trial with forces to which 
they both looked for Charles’s ultimate safety and deliver¬ 
ance, he became so far exalted by the change, that he took 
the lead and direction, and required them as the weak, to 
trust to him as the strong. The preceding relative positions 
of himself and Lucie were reversed, yet only as the liveliest 
gratitude and affection could reverse them, for he could have 
had no pride but in rendering some service to her who had 
rendered so much to him. “All curious to see,” thought 
Mr. Lorry, in his amiably shrewd way, “but all natural and 
right; so, take the lead, my dear friend, and keep it; it 
couldn’t be in better hands.” 

But, though the Doctor tried hard, and never ceased trying, 
to get Charles Darnay set at liberty, or at least to get him 
brought to trial, the public current of the time set too strong 


382 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


and fast for him. The new era began; the king was tried, 
doomed, and beheaded; the Republic of Liberty, Equality ’ 
Fraternity, or Death, declared for victory or death against 
the world in arms; the black flag waved night and day from 
the great towers of Notre Dame; three hundred thousand men, 
summoned to rise against the tyrants of the earth, rose from 
all the varying soils of France, as if the dragon’s teeth had 
been sown broadcast, and yielded fruit equally on hill 
and plain, on rock, in gravel, and alluvial mud, under the 
bright sky of the South and under the clouds of the North, 
in fell and forest, in the vineyards and the olive-grounds and 
among the cropped grass and the stubble of the corn, along 
the fruitful banks of the broad rivers, and in the sand of 
the sea-shore. What private solicitude could rear itself 
against the deluge of the Year One of Liberty—the deluge 
rising from below, not falling from above, and with the 
windows of Heaven shut, not opened! 

There was no pause, no pity, no peace, no interval of 
relenting rest, no measurement of time. Though days and 
nights circled as regularly as when time was young, and the 
evening and morning were the first day, other count of time 
there was none. Hold of it was lost in the raging fever of 
a nation, as it is in the fever of one patient. Now, break¬ 
ing the unnatural silence of a whole city, the executioner 
showed the people the head of the king—and now, it seemed 
almost in the same breath, the head of his fair wife which 
had had eight weary months of imprisoned widowhood and 
misery, to turn it grey. 

And yet observing the strange law of contradiction which 
obtains in all such cases, the time was long, while it flamed 
by so fast. A revolutionary tribunal in the capital, and 
forty or fifty thousand revolutionary committees all over the 
land; a law of the Suspected, which struck away all security 


CALM IN STORM 


383 


for liberty or life, and delivered over any good and innocent 
person to any bad and guilty one; prisons gorged with 
people who had committed no offence, and could obtain no 
hearing; these things became the established order and na¬ 
ture of appointed things, and seemed to be ancient usage 
before they were many weeks old. Above all, one hideous 
figure grew as familiar as if it had been before the general 
gaze from the foundations of the world—the figure of the 
sharp female called La Guillotine. 

It was the popular theme for jests; it was the best cure 
for headache, it infallibly prevented the hair from turning 
grey, it imparted a peculiar delicacy to the complexion, it 
was the National Razor which shaved close: who kissed La 
Guillotine, looked through the little window and sneezed 
into the sack. It was the sign of the regeneration of the 
human race. It superseded the Cross. Models of it were 
worn on breasts from which the Cross was discarded, and it 
was bowed down to and believed in where the Cross was 
denied. 

It sheared off heads so many, that it, and the ground it 
most polluted, were a rotten red. It was taken to pieces, 
like a toy-puzzle for a young Devil and was put together 
again when the occasion wanted it. It hushed the eloquent, 
struck down the powerful, abolished the beautiful and good! 
Twenty-two friends of high public mark, twenty-one living 
and one dead, it had lopped the heads off, in one morning, 
in as many minutes. The name of the strong man of Old 
Scripture had descended to the chief functionary who 
worked it; but, so armed, he was stronger than his name¬ 
sake, and blinder, and tore away the gates of God’s own 
Temple every day. 

Among these terrors, and the brood belonging to them, 
the Doctor walked with a steady head: confident in his 


384 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


power, cautiously persistent in his end, never doubting that 
he would save Lucie’s husband at last. Yet the current of 
the time swept by, so strong and, deep, and carried the time 
away so fiercely, that Charles had lain in prison one year and 
three months when the Doctor was thus steady and confident. 
So much more wicked and distracted had the Revolution 
grown in that December month, that the rivers of the South 
were encumbered with the bodies of the violently drowned 
by night, and prisoners were shot in lines and squares under 
the southern wintry sun. Still the Doctor walked among 
the terrors with a steady head. No man better known than 
he, in Paris at that day; no man in a stranger situation. 
Silent, humane, indispensable in hospital and prison, using 
his art equally among assassins and victims, he was a man 
apart. In the exercise of his skill, the appearance and the 
story of the Bastille Captive removed him from all other men. 
He was not suspected or brought in question, any more 
than if he had indeed been recalled to life some eighteen 
years before, or were a Spirit moving among mortals. 


CHAPTER V. 

THE WOOD-SAWYER 

One year and three months. During ail that time Lucie 
was never sure, from hour to hour, but that the Guillotine 
would strike off her husband’s head next day. Every day, 
through the stony streets, the tumbrils now jolted heavily, 
filled with Condemned. Lovely girls; bright women, brown¬ 
haired, black-haired, and grey; youths; stalwart men and old; 
gentle born and peasant born; all red wine for La Guillotine, 
all daily brought into light from the dark cellars of the 
loathsome prisons, and carried to her through the street 
to slake her devouring thirst. Liberty, equality, fraternity, 
or death;—the last, much the easiest to bestow, O Guillotine! 

If the suddenness of her calamity, and the whirling wdieels 
of the time, had stunned the Doctor’s daughter into awaiting 
the result in idle despair, it would but have been with her 
as it was with many. But, from the hour when she had 
taken the white head to her fresh young bosom in the garret 
of Saint Antoine, she had been true to her duties. She was 
truest to them in the season of trial, as all the quietly loyal 
and good will always be. 

As soon as they were established in their new residence, 
and her father had entered on the routine of his avocations, 
she arranged the little household as exactly as if her husband 
had been there. Everything had its appointed place and 
its appointed time. Little Lucie she taught, as regularly 
as if they had all been united in their English home. The 
slight devices with which she cheated herself into the show 
of a belief that they would soon be reunited—the little 


386 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


preparations for his speedy return, the setting aside of his 
chair and his books—these, and the solemn prayer at night 
for one dear prisoner especially, among the many unhappy 
souls in prison and the shadow of death—were almost the 
only outspoken reliefs of her heavy mind. 

She did not greatly alter in appearance. The plain dark 
dresses, akin to mourning dresses, which she and her child 
wore, were as neat and as well attended to as the brighter 
clothes of happy days. She lost her colour, and the old and 
intent expression was a constant, not an occasional, thing; 
otherwise, she remained very pretty and comely. Sometimes, 
at night on kissing her father, she would burst into the grief 
she had repressed all day, and would say that her sole 
reliance, under Heaven, was on him. He always resolutely 
answered: ‘‘Nothing can happen to him without my knowl¬ 
edge, and I know that I can save him, Lucie.” 

They had not made the round of their changed life many 
weeks, when her father said to her, on coming home one 
evening: 

“My dear, there is an upper window in the prison, to 
• which Charles can sometimes gain access at three in the 
afternoon. When he can get to it—which depends on many 
uncertainties and incidents—he might see you in the street, 
he thinks, if you stood in a certain place that I can show 
you. But you will not be able to see him, my poor child, 
and even if you could, it would be unsafe for you to make a 
sign of recognition.” 

“O show me the place, my father, and I will go there 
every day.” 

From that time, in all weathers, she waited there two 
hours. As the clock struck two, she was there, and at four 
she turned resignedly away. When it was not too wet or 
inclement for her child to be with her. they went together; 


THE WOOD-SAWYER 


387 


at other times she was alone; but she never missed a single 
day. 

It was the dark and dirty corner of a small winding street. 
The hovel of a cutter of wood into lengths for burning, was 
the only house at that end; all else was wall. On the third 
day of her being there, he noticed her. 

“Good day, citizeness.” 

“Good day, citizen.” 

This mode of address was now prescribed by decree. 
It had been established voluntarily some time ago, among the 
more thorough patriots; but was now law for everybody. 

“Walking here again, citizeness?” 

“You see me, citizen!” 

The wood-sawyer, who was a little man with a redundancy 
of gesture (he had once been a mender of roads), cast a glance 
at the prison, pointed at the prison, and putting his ten 
fingers before his face to represent bars, peeped through 
them jocosely. 

“But it’s not my business,” said he. And went on sawing 
his wood. 

Next day he was looking out for her, and accosted her the 
moment she appeared. 

“What? Walking here again, citizeness?” 

“Yes, citizen. ” 

“Ah! A child too! Your mother, is it not, my little 
citizeness?” 

“Do I say yes, mamma?” whispered little Lucie, drawing 
close to her. 

“Yes, dearest.” 

“Yes, citizen.” 

“Ah! But it’s not my business. My work is my business. 
See my saw! I call it my Little Guillotine. La, la, la; La, 
la, la! And off his head comes!” 


388 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


The billet fell as he spoke, and he threw it into a basket 

“I call myself the Samson of the firewood guillotine. See 
here again! Loo, loo, loo; Loo, loo, loo! And off her head 
comes! Now, a child. Tickle, tickle; Pickle, pickle! And 
off its head comes. All the family!” 

Lucie shuddered as he threw two more billets into his 
basket, but it was impossible to be there while the wood- 
sawyer was at work, and not be in his sight. Thenceforth, 
to secure his good will, she always spoke to him first, and 
often gave him drink-money, which he readily received. 

He was an inquisitive fellow, and sometimes when she had 
quite forgotten him in gazing at the prison roof and grates, 
and in lifting her heart up to her husband, she would come 
to herself to find him looking at her, with his knee on his 
bench and his saw stopped in its work. “But it’s not my 
business!” he would generally say at those times, and would 
briskly fall to his sawing again. 

In all weathers, in the snow and frost of winter, in the 
bitter winds of spring, in the hot sunshine of summer, in the 
rains of autumn, and again in the snow and frost of winter, 
Lucie passed two hours of every day at this place; and every 
day on leaving it, she kissed the prison wall. Her husband 
saw her (so she learned from her father) it might be once in 
five or six times: it might be twice or thrice running: it 
might be not for a week or a fortnight together. It was 
enough that he could and did see her when the chances 
served, and on that possibility she would have waited out 
the day, seven days a week. 

These occupations brought her round to the December 
month, wherein her father walked among the terrors with a 
steady head. On a lightly-snowing afternoon she arrived at 
the usual corner. It was a day of some wild rejoicing, and a 
festival. She had seen the houses, as she came along, deco- 


THE WOOD-SAWYER 


389 


rated with little pikes, and with little red caps stuck upon 
them; also, with tricoloured ribbons; also, with the standard 
inscription (tricoloured letters were the favourite), Republic 
One and Indivisible. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or 
Death! 

The miserable shop of the wood-sawyer was so small that 
its. whole surface furnished very indifferent space for this 
legend. He had got somebody to scrawl it up for him, how¬ 
ever, who had squeezed Death in with most inappropriate 
difficulty. On his house-top, he displayed pike and cap, as 
a good citizen must, and in a window he had stationed his 
saw inscribed as his “Little Sainte Guillotine”—for the 
great sharp female was by that time popularly canonised . 1 
His shop was shut and he was not there, which was a relief 
to Lucie, and left her quite alone. 

But, he was not far off, for presently she heard a troubled 
movement and a shouting coming along, which filled her with 
fear. A moment afterwards, and a throng of people came 
pouring around the corner by the prison wall, in the midst of 
whom was the wood-sawyer hand in hand with The Venge¬ 
ance. There could not be fewer than five hundred people, 
and they were dancing like five thousand demons. There was 
no other music than their own singing. They danced to the 


popular Revolution song, keeping a ferocious time that was 
like a gnashing of teeth in unison. Men and women danced 
together, women danced together, men danced together, as 
hazard had brought them together. At first, they were a 
mere storm of coarse red caps and coarse woolen rags; but, 
as they filled the place, and stopped to dance about Lucie, 
some ghastly apparition of a dance-figure gone raving mad 

1 “The worship of the guillotine,” says H. Morse Stephens, “was one of 
the most curious features of the epoch. Children had toy guillotines given 
them; models were made to cut off imitation heads, when wine or sweet 
syrup flowed in place of blood; and hymns were written to La Sainte Guillo¬ 
tine, and jokes made upon it as ‘the national razor.’ 


390 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


arose among them. They advanced, retreated, struck at one 
another’s hands, clutched at one another’s heads, spun round 
alone, caught one another and spun round in pairs, until 
many of them dropped. While those were down, the rest 
linked hand in hand, and all spun round together: then 
the ring broke, and in separate rings of two and four they 
turned and turned until they all stopped at once, began again, 
struck, clutched, and tore, and then reversed the spin, and 
all spun round another way. Suddenly they stopped again, 
paused, struck out the time afresh, formed into lines the 
width of the public way, and, with their heads low down 
and their hands high up, swooped screaming off. No fight 
could have been half so terrible as this dance. It was so 
emphatically a fallen sport—a something, once innocent, 
delivered over to all devilry—a healthy pastime changed 
into a means of angering the blood, bewildering the senses, 
and steeling the heart. Such grace as was visible in it, 
made it the uglier, showing how warped and perverted 
all things good by nature were become. The maidenly 
bosom bared to this, the pretty almost-child’s head thus 
distracted, the delicate foot mincing in this slough of blood 
and dirt, were types of the disjointed time. 

This was the Carmagnole . 1 As it passed, leaving Lucie 
frightened and bewildered in the doorway of the wood- 
sawyer’s house, the feathery snow fell as quietly and lay as 
white and soft, as if it had never been. 

“O my father!” for he stood before her when she lifted 
up the eyes she had momentarily darkened with her hand; 
“such a cruel, bad sight.” 

“I know, my dear, I know. I have seen it many times. 
Don’t be frightened! Not one of them would harm you.” 

i Read Carlyle, History of the French Revolution , Bart III, Book V, Chap, 
iv, where such an orgy is described. The words of the song may be read 
on page 205 of The French Revolution by Professor Shailer Mathews. 


THE WOOD-SAWYER 


391 


“I am not frightened for myself, my father. But when 
I think of my husband, and the mercies of these people-” 

“We will set him above their mercies very soon. I left 
him climbing to the window, and I came to tell you. There 
is no one here to see. You may kiss vour hand towards 
that highest shelving roof.” 

“I do so, father, and I send him my Soul with it!” 

“You cannot see him, my poor dear?” 

‘No, father,” said Lucie, yearning and weeping as she 
kissed her hand, “no.” 

A footstep in the snow. Madame Defarge. “I salute you, 
citizeness,” from the Doctor. “I salute you, citizen.” This 
in passing. Nothing more. Madame Defarge gone, like a 
shadow over the white road. 

“Give me your arm, my love. Pass from here with an air 
of cheerfulness and courage, for his sake. That was well 
done;” they had left the spot; “it shall not be in vain. Charles 
is summoned for to-morrow.” 

“For to-morrow!” 

“There is no time to lose. I am w r ell prepared, but there 
are precautions to be taken, that could not be taken until he 
was actually summoned before the Tribunal. He has not 
received the notice yet, but I know that he will presently be 
summoned for to-morrow, and removed to the Conciergerie; 
I have timely information. You are not afraid?” 

She could scarcely answer, “I trust in you.” 

“Do so, implicitly. Your suspense is nearly ended, my dar¬ 
ling; he shall be restored to you within a few hours; I have 
encompassed him with every protection. I must see Lorry.” 

He stopped. There was a heavy lumbering of wheels 
within hearing. They both knew too well what it meant. 
One. Two. Three. Three tumbrik faring away with their 
dread loads o^er the hushing snow. 


392 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“I must see Lorry,” the Doctor repeated, turning her 
another way. 

The staunch old gentleman was still in his trust; had never 
left it. He and his books were in frequent requisition as to 
property confiscated and made national. What he could 
save for the owners, he saved. No better man living to 
hold fast by what Tellson’s had in keeping, and to hold his 
peace. 

A murky red and yellow sky, and a rising mist from the 
Seine, denoted the approach of darkness. It was almost 
dark when they arrived at the Bank. The stately res¬ 
idence of Monseigneur was altogether blighted and deserted. 
Above a heap of dust and ashes in the court, ran the letters: 
National Property. Republic One and Indivisible. Liber¬ 
ty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death! 

J Who could that be with Mr. Lorry—the owner of the 
riding-coat upon the chair—who must not be seen? From 
whom newly arrived, did he come out, agitated and sur¬ 
prised, to take his favourite in his arms? To whom did he 
appear to repeat her faltering words, when, raising his voice 
and turning his head towards the door of the room from 
which he had issued, he said: “Removed to the Conciergerie, 
and summoned for to-morrow?” 


CHAPTER VI. 


TRIUMPH 

The dread Tribunal of five Judges, Public Prosecutor, and 
determined Jury, sat every day. Their lists went forth every 
evening, and were read out by the gaolers of the various 
prisons to their prisoners . 1 The standard gaoler-joke was, 
“Come out and listen to the Evening Paper, you inside 
there!” 

“Charles Evremonde, called Darnay!” 

So at last began the Evening Paper at La Force. 

When a name was called, its owner stepped apart into a 
spot reserved for those who were announced as being thus 
fatally recorded. Charles Evremonde, called Darnay, had 
reason to know the usage; he had seen hundreds pass 
away so. 

His bloated gaoler, who wore spectacles to read with, 
glanced over them to assure himself that he had taken his 
place, and went through the list, making a similar short 
pause at each name. There were twenty-three names, but 
only twenty were responded to; for one of the prisoners so 
summoned had died in gaol and been forgotten, and two had 
already been guillotined and forgotten. The list was read, 
in the vaulted chamber where Darnay had seen the associated 
prisoners on the night of his arrival. Every one of those had 
perished in the massacre; every human creature he had since 
cared for and parted with, had died on the scaffold. 

There were hurried words of farewell and kindness, but the 

1 For an account of how the lists were made out, p,nd of the mode of pro¬ 
cedure at these trials, see The French Revolution by H. Morse Stephens, 
Vol. II. Chap, x, pp. 333-4. 

393 


394 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


parting was soon over. It was the incident of every day, and 
the society of La Force were engaged in the preparation of 
some games of forfeits and a little concert, for that evening. 
They crowded to the grates and shed tears there; but, twenty 
places in the projected entertainments had to be refilled, and 
the time was, at best, short to the lock-up hour, when the 
common rooms and corridors would be delivered over to the 
great dogs who kept watch there through the night. The 
prisoners were far from insensible or unfeeling; their ways 
arose out of the condition of the time. Similarly, though 
with a subtle difference, a species of fervour or intoxication, 
known, without doubt, to have led some persons to brave the 
guillotine unnecessarily, and to die by it, was not mere boast¬ 
fulness, but a wild infection of the wildly shaken public mind. 
In seasbns of pestilence, some of us will have a secret attrac¬ 
tion to the disease—a terrible passing inclination to die of it. 
And all of us have like wonders hidden in our breasts, only 
needing circumstances to evoke them. 

The passage to the Conciergerie was short and dark; the 
night in its vermin-haunted cells was long and cold. Next 
day, fifteen prisoners were put to the bar before Charles 
Darnay’s name was called. All the fifteen were condemned, 
and the trials of the whole occupied an hour and a half . 1 

“Charles Evremonde, called Darnay,” was at length 
arraigned. 

His judges sat upon the Bench in feathered hats; but the 
rough red cap and tricoloured cockade was the head-dress 
otherwise prevailing. Looking at the Jury and the turbulent 
audience, he might have thought that the usual order of 
things was reversed, and that the felons were trying the honest 

1 On June 10, 1794, a decree was passed depriving prisoners on trial of 
counsel. Robespierre’s overthrow occurred July 27. of the same year 
Within these seven weeks thirteen hundred and seventy-six persons were 
sent to the guillotine, an average of one hundred and ninety-six per week. 


TRIUMPH 


395 


men. The lowest, crudest, and worst populace of a city, 
never without its quantity of low, cruel, and bad, were the 
directing spirits of the scene: noisily commenting, applaud¬ 
ing, disapproving, anticipating, and precipitating the result, 
without a check. Of the men, the greater part were armed 
in various ways; of the women, some wore knives, some 
daggers, some ate and drank as they looked on, many knitted. 
Among these last, was one, with a spare piece of knitting 
under her arm as she worked. She was in a front row, by 
the side of a man whom he had never seen since his arrival 
at the Barrier, but whom he directly remembered as Defarge. 
He noticed that she once or twice whispered in his ear, and 
that she seemed to be his wife; but, what he most noticed in 
the two figures was, that although they were posted as close 
to himself as they could be, they never locked towards him. 
They seemed to be waiting for something with a dogged 
determination, and they looked at the Jury, but at nothing 
else. Under the President sat Doctor Manette, in Ins' usual 
quiet dress. As well as the prisoner could see, he and Mr. 
Lorry were the only men there, unconnected with the Tribu¬ 
nal, who wore their usual clothes, and had not assumed the 
coarse garb of the Carmagnole. 

Charles Evr6monde, called Darnay, was accused by the 
public prosecutor as an emigrant, whose life was forfeit to 
the Republic, under the decree which banished all emigrants 
on pain of Death. It was nothing that the decree bore date 
since his return to France. There he was, and there was the 
decree; he had been taken in France, and his head was 
demanded. 

“Take off his head!” cried the audience. “An enemy to 
the Republic!” 

The President rang his bell to silence those cries, and asked 


396 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


the prisoner whether it was not true that he had lived many 
years in England? 

Undoubtedly it was. 

Was he not an emigrant then? What did he call himself? 

Not an emigrant, he hoped, within the sense and spirit of 
the law. 

Why not? the President desired to know. 

Because he had voluntarily relinquished a title that was 
distasteful to him, and a station that was distasteful to him, 
and had left his country—he submitted before the word 
emigrant in the present acceptation by the Tribunal was in 
use—to live by his own industry in England, rather than on 
the industry of the overladen people of France. 

What proof had he of this? 

He handed in the names of two witnesses: Theophile 
Gabelle, and Alexandre Manette. 

But he had married in England? the President reminded 
him. 

True, but not an English woman. 

A citizeness of France? 

Yes. By birth. 

Her name and family? 

“Lucie Manette, only daughter of Doctor Manette, the 
good physician who sits there.” 

This answer had a happy effect upon the audience. Cries 
in exaltation of the well-known good physician rent the hall. 
So capriciously were the people moved, that tears immediate¬ 
ly rolled down several ferocious countenances which had been 
glaring at the prisoner a moment before, as if with impa¬ 
tience to pluck him out into the streets and kill him. 

On these few steps of his dangerous way, Charles Darnay 
had set his foot according to Doctor Manette’s reiterated in¬ 
structions. The same cautious counsel directed every step 


TRIUMPH 


3}S7 

that lay before him, and had prepared every inch of his road. 

The President asked, why had he returned to France when 
he did and not sooner? 

Fie had not returned sooner, he replied, simply because he 
had no means of living in France, save those he had resigned; 
whereas, in England, he lived by giving instruction in the 
French language and literature. He had returned when he 
did, on the pressing and written entreaty of a French citizen, 
who represented that his life was endangered by his absence. 
He had come back, to save a citizen’s life, and to bear his 
testimony, at whatever personal hazard, to the truth. Was 
that criminal in the eyes of the Republic? 

The populace cried enthusiastically, “No!” and the Presi¬ 
dent rang his bell to quiet them. Which it did not, for they 
continued to cry “No!” until they left off, of their own will. 

The President required the name of that citizen? The 
accused explained that the citizen was his first witness. He 
also referred with confidence to the citizen’s letter, which had 
been taken from him at the Barrier, but which he did not 
doubt would be found among the papers then before the 
President. 

The Doctor had taken care that it should be there—had 
assured him that it would be there—and at this stage of the 
proceedings it was produced and read. Citizen Gabelle was 
called to confirm it, and did so. Citizen Gabelle hinted, with 
infinite delicacy and politeness, that in the pressure of busi¬ 
ness imposed on the Tribunal by the multitude of enemies of 
the Republic with which it had to deal, he had been slightly 
overlooked in his prison of the Abbaye—in fact, had rather 
passed out of the Tribunal’s patriotic remembrance—until 
three days ago; when he had been summoned before it, and 
had been set at liberty on the Jury’s declaring themselves 
satisfied that the accusation against him was answered, as to 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


m 


himself, by the surrender of the citizen Evremonde, called 
Darnay. 

Doctor Manette was next questioned. His high personal 
popularity, and the clearness of his answers, made a great im¬ 
pression; but, as he proceeded, as he showed that the Ac¬ 
cused was his first friend on his release from his long im¬ 
prisonment; that the accused had remained in England, 
always faithful and devoted to his daughter and himself in 
their exile; that, so far from being in favour with the Aris¬ 
tocrat government there, he had actually been tried for his 
life by it, as the foe of England and friend of the United States 
—as he brought these circumstances into view, with the 
greatest discretion and with the straightforward force of 
truth and earnestness, the Jury and the populace became one. 
At last, when he appealed by name to Monsieur Lorry, an 
English gentleman then and there present, who, like himself, 
had bfeen a witness on that English trial and could corrobo¬ 
rate his account of it, the Jury declared that they had heard 
enough, and that they were ready with their votes if the 
President were content to receive them. 

At every vote (the Jurymen voted aloud and individually), 
the populace set up a shout of applause. All the voices -were 
in the prisoner’s favour, and the President declared him free. 

Then, began one of those extraordinary scenes -with which 
the populace sometimes gratified their fickleness, or their 
better impulses towards generosity and mercy, or which they 
regarded as some set-off against their swollen account of 
cruel rage. No man can decide now to which of these motives 
such extraordinary scenes were referable; it is probable, to a 
blending of all the three, with the second predominating. 
No sooner was the acquittal pronounced, than tears were 
shed as freely as blood at another time, and such fraternal 
embraces were bestowed upon the prisoner by as many of 


TRIUMPH 


399 


both sexes as could rush at him, that after his long and un¬ 
wholesome confinement he was in danger of fainting from 
exhaustion; none the less because he knew very well, that 
the very same people, carried by another current, would 
have rushed at him with the very same intensity, to rend him 
to pieces and strew him over the streets. 1 

His removal, to make way for other accused persons who 
were to be tried, rescued him from these caresses for the 
moment. Five were to be tried together, next, as enemies of 
the Republic, forasmuch as they had not assisted it by word 
or deed. So quick was the Tribunal to compensate itself and 
the nation for a chance lost, that these five came down to 
him before he left the place, condemned to die within twenty- 
four hours. The first of them told him so, with the customary 
prison sign of Death—a raised finger—and they all added in 
words, “Long live the Republic!” 

The five had had, it is true, no audience to lengthen their 
proceedings, for when he and Doctor Manette emerged from 
the gate, there was a great crowd about it, in which there 
seemed to be every face he had seen in Court—except two, 
for which he looked in vain. On his coming out, the con¬ 
course made at him anew, weeping, embracing, and shouting, 
all by turns and all together, until the very tide of the river 
on the bank of which the mad scene was acted, seemed to 
run mad, like the people on the shore. 

They put him into a great chair they had among them, 
and which they had taken either out of the Court itself, or 
one of its rooms or passages. Over the chair they had thrown 
a red flag, and to the back of it they had bound a pike with 
a red cap on its top. In this car of triumph, not even the 
Doctor’s entreaties could prevent his being carried to his 

1 See Carlyle, History of the French Revolution , Part III, Book I, Chap, 
iv, p. 39, where examples are given of such inconsistency. 


400 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


home on men’s shoulders, with a confused sea of red caps 
heaving about him, and casting up to sight from the stormy 
deep such wrecks of faces, that he more than once misdoubted 
his mind being in confusion, and that he was in the tumbril 
on his way to the Guillotine. 

In wild dreamlike procession, embracing whom they met 
and pointing him out, they carried him on. Reddening 
the snowy streets with the prevailing Republican colour, in 
winding and tramping through them, as they had reddened 
them below the snow with a deeper dye, they carried him thus 
into the court-yard of the building where he lived. Her 
father had gone on before, to prepare her, and when her 
husband stood upon his feet, she dropped insensible in his 
arms. 

As he held her to his heart and turned her beautiful head 
between his face and the brawling crowd, so that his tears 
and her lips might come together unseen, a few of the people 
fell to dancing. Instantly, all the rest fell to dancing, and 
the court-yard overflowed with the Carmagnole. Then, they 
elevated into the vacant chair a young woman from the crowd 
to be carried as the Goddess of Liberty, and them swelling 
and overflowing out into the adjacent streets, and along the 
river’s bank, and over the bridge, the Carmagnole absorbed 
them every one and whirled them away. 

After grasping the Doctor’s hand, as he stood victorious 
and proud before him; after grasping the hand of Mr. Lorry, 
who came panting in breathless from his struggle against 
the waterspout of the Carmagnole; after kissing little Lucie, 
who was lifted up to clasp her arms round his neck; and after 
embracing the ever zealous and faithful Pross who lifted 
her; he took his wife in his arms, and carried her up to their 
rooms. 

“Lucie! My own! I am safe.” 


TRIUMPH 


401 


“O dearest Charles, let me thank God for this on my knees 
as I have prayed to Him.” 

They all reverently bowed their heads and hearts. When 
she was again in his arms, he said to her: 

“And now speak to your father, dearest. No other man 
in all this France could have done what he has done for 
me.” 

She laid her head upon her father’s breast, as she had laid 
his poor head on her breast, long, long ago. He was happy 
in the return he had made her, he was recompensed for his 
suffering, he was proud of his strength. “You must not be 
weak, my darling,” he remonstrated; “don’t tremble so. 
I have saved him.” 


CHAPTER VII, 

A KNOCK AT THE DOOR 

‘T have saved him.” It was not another of the dreams 
in which he had often come back; he was really here. And 
yet his wife trembled, and a vague but heavy fear was upon 
ner. 

All the air around was so thick and dark, the people were 
so passionately revengeful and fitful, the innocent were so 
constantly put to death on vague suspicion and black malice, 
it was so impossible to forget that many as blameless as her 
husband and as dear to others as he was to her, every day 
shared the fate from which he had been clutched, that her 
heart could not be as lightened of its load as she felt it ought 
to be. The shadows of the wintry afternoon were beginning 
to fall, and even now the dreadful carts were rolling through 
the streets. Her mind pursued them, looking for him among 
the Condemned; and then she clung closer to his real presence 
and trembled more. 

Her father, cheering her, showed a compassionate superi¬ 
ority to this woman’s weakness, which was wonderful to see. 
No garret, no shoemaking, no One Hundred and Five, North 
Tower, now! He had accomplished the task he had set him¬ 
self, his promise was redeemed, he had saved Charles. Let 
them all lean upon him. 

Their housekeeping was of a very frugal kind: not only 
because that was the safest way of life, involving the least 
offence to the people, but because they were not rich, and 
Charles, throughout his imprisonment, had had to pay heavily 
for his bad food, and for his guard, and towards the living 
of the poorer prisoners. Partly on this account, and partly 


A KNOCK AT THE DOOR 


403 


to avoid a domestic spy, they kept no servant; the citizen 
and citizeness who acted as porters at the court-yard gate, 
rendered them occasional service; and Jerry (almost wholly 
transferred to them by Mr. Lorry) had become their daily 
retainer, and had his bed there every night. 

It was an ordinance of the Republic One and Indivisible 
of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death, that on the door 
or doorpost of every house, the name of every inmate must be 
legibly inscribed in letters of a certain size, at a certain con¬ 
venient height from the ground. Mr. Jerry Cruncher’s 
name, therefore, duly embellished the doorpost down below; 
and, as the afternoon shadows deepened, the owner of that 
name himself appeared, from overlooking a painter whom 
Doctor Manette had employed to add to the list the name of 
Charles Evremonde, called Darnay. 

In the universal fear and distrust that darkened the time, 
all the usual harmless ways of life were changed. In the 
Doctor’s little household, as in very many others, the articles 
of daily consumption that were wanted were purchased every 
evening, in small quantities and at various small shops. To 
avoid attracting notice, and to give as little occasion as 
possible for talk and envy, was the general desire. 

For some months past, Miss Pross and Mr. Cruncher had 
discharged the office of purveyors; the former carrying the 
money; the latter, the basket. Every afternoon at about 
the time when the public lamps were lighted, they fared forth 
on this duty, and made and brought home such purchases 
as were needful. Although Miss Pross, through her long 
association with a French family, might have known as much 
of their language as of her own, if she had had a mind, she 
had no mind in that direction; consequently she knew 
no more of that “nonsense” (as she was pleased to call it) | 
than Mr. Cruncher did. So her manner of marketing was to 


404 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


plump a noun-substantive at the head of a shopkeeper with¬ 
out any introduction in the nature of an article, and, if it 
happened not to be the name of the thing she wanted, to look 
round for that thing, lay hold of it, and hold on by it until the 
bargain was concluded. She always made a bargain for it, 
by holding up, as a statement of its just price, one finger less 
than the merchant held up, whatever his number might be. 

“Now, Mr. Cruncher,” said Miss Pross, whose eyes were 
red with felicity; “if you are ready, I am/’ 

Jerry hoarsely professed himself at Miss Pross’s service. 
He had worn all his rust off long ago, but nothing would file 
his spiky head down. 

“There’s all manner of things wanted,” said Miss Pross, 
“and we shall have a precious time of it. We want wine, 
among the rest. Nice toasts these Redheads will be drink¬ 
ing, wherever we buy it.” 

“It will be much the same to your knowledge, miss, I 
should think,” retorted Jerry, “whether they drink your 
health or the Old Un’s.” 

“Who’s he?” said Miss Pross. 

Mr. Cruncher, with some diffidence, explained himself as 
meaning “Old Nick’s.” 

“Ha!” said Miss Pross, “it doesn’t need an interpreter to 
explain the meaning of these creatures. They have but one, 
and it’s Midnight Murder, and Mischief.” 

“Hush, dear! Pray, pray, be cautious!” cried Lucie. 

“Yes, yes, yes, I’ll be cautious,” said Miss Pross; “but I 
may say among ourselves, that I do hope there will be no 
oniony and tobaccoey smotherings in the form of embracings 
all round, going on in the streets. Now, Ladybird, never you 
stir from that fire till I come back! Take care of the dear 
husband you have recovered, and don’t move your pretty 
head from his shoulder as you have it now, till you see me 


A KNOCK AT THE DOOR 405 

J ^ 

again! May I ask a question, DoctorManette, before I go?” 

“I think you may take that liberty,” the Doctor answered, 
smiling. 

“For gracious sake, don’t talk about Liberty; we have 
quite enough of that,” said Miss Pross. 

“Hush, dear! Again?” Lucie remonstrated. 

“Well, my sweet,” said Miss Pross, nodding her head em¬ 
phatically, “the short and the long of it is, that I am a subject 
of His Most Gracious Majesty King George the Third;” Miss 
Pross curtseyed at the name; “and as such, my maxim is, 
Confound their politics, Frustrate their knavish tricks, On 
him our hopes we fix, God save the King!” 1 

Mr. Cruncher, in an access of loyalty, growlingly repeated 
the words after Miss Pross, like somebody at church. 

“I am glad you have so much of the Englishman in you, 
though I wish you had never taken that cold in your voice,” 
said Miss Pross, approvingly. “But the question, Doctor 
Manette. Is there”—it was the good creature’s way to affect 
to make light of anything that was a great anxiety with them 
all, and to come at it in this chance manner—“is there any 
prospect yet, of our getting out of this place?” 

“I fear not yet. It would be dangerous for Charles yet.” 

“Heigh-ho-hum!” said Miss Pross, cheerfully repressing a 
sigh as she glanced at her darling’s golden hair in the light of 
the fire, “then we must have patience and wait: that’s all. 
We must hold up our heads and fight low, as my brother 
Solomon used to say. Now, Mr. Cruncher!—Don’t you 
move, Ladybird!” 

They went out, leaving Lucie, and her husband, her father, 
and the child, by a bright fire. Mr. Lorry was expected back 
presently from the Banking House. Miss Pross had lighted 

i These words are a part of one stanza of the famous song, “God savo 
the King.” 


406 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


the lamp, but had put it aside in a corner, that they might 
enjoy the fire-light undisturbed. Little Lucie sat by her 
grandfather with her hands clasped through his arm: and he, 
in a tone not rising much above a whisper, began to tell her a 
story of a great and powerful Fairy who had opened a prison- 
wall and let out a captive who had once done the Fairy a 
service. All was subdued and quiet, and Lucie was more at 
ease than she had been. 

“What is that?” she cried, all at once. 

“My dear!” said her father, stopping in his story, and 
laying his hand on hers, “command yourself. What a dis¬ 
ordered state you are in! The least thing—nothing—startles 
you! You, your father’s daughter!” 

“I thought, my father,” said Lucie, excusing herself, with 
a pale face and in a faltering voice, “that I heard strange feet 
upon the stairs.” 

“My love, the staircase is as still as Death. 

As he said the word, a blow was struck upon the door. 

“Oh father, father. What can this be! Hide Charles. 
Save him!” 

“My child,” said the Doctor, rising, and laying his hand 
upon her shoulder, “I have saved him. What weakness is 
this, my dear! Let me go to the door.” 

He took the lamp in his hand, crossed the two intervening 
outer rooms, and opened it. A rude clattering of feet over 
the floor, and four rough men in red caps, armed with sabres 
and pistols, entered the room. 

“The Citizen Evremonde, called Darnay,” said the first. 

“Who seeks him?” answered Darnay. 

“I seek him. We seek him. I know you, Evremonde; I 
saw you before the Tribunal to-day. You are again the 
prisoner of the Republic.” 


A KNOCK AT THe ^'OOR 


407 


The four surrounded him, where he stood with his wife and 
child clinging to him. 

“Tell me how and why am I again a prisoner?” 

“It is enough that you return straight to the Conciergerie, 
and will know to-morrow. You are summoned for to-mor¬ 
row.” 

Dr. Manette, whom this visitation had so turned into 
stone, that he stood with the lamp in his hand, as if he were 
a statue made to hold it, moved after these words were 
spoken, put the lamp down, and confronting the speaker, 
and taking him, not ungently, by the loose front of his red 
woollen shirt, said: 

“You know him, you have said. Do you know me? 5 

“Yes, I know you, Citizen Doctor.” 

“We all know you, Citizen Doctor,” said the other three. 

He looked abstractedly from one to another, and said, in a 
lower voice, after a pause: 

“Will vou answer his question to me then? How does this 
happenl 

“Citizen Doctor,” said the first, reluctantly, “he has been 
denounced to the Section of Saint Antoine. This citizen,” 
pointing out the second who had entered, “is from Saint 
Antoine.” 

The citizen here indicated nodded his head, and added: 

“He is accused by Saint Antoine.” 

“Of what?” asked the Doctor. 

“Citizen Doctor,” said the first, with his former reluctance, 
“asl no more. If the Republic demands sacrifices from you, 
without doubt you as a good patriot will be happy to make 
them. The Republic goes before all. The People is supreme. 
Evr£monde, we are pressed.” 

“One word,” the Doctor entreated. “Will you tell me 
who denounced him?” 


408 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“It is against rule, ,, answered the first; but you can ask 
Him of Saint Antoine here.” 

The Doctor turned his eyes upon that man, who moved 
uneasily on his feet, rubbed his beard a little, and at length 
said: 

“Well! Truly it is against rule. But he is denounced— 
and gravely—by the Citizen and Citizeness Defarge. And by 
one other.” 

“What other?” 

“Do you ask, Citizen Doctor?” 

“Yes.” 

“Then,” said he of Saint Antoine, with a strange look, “you 
will be answered to-morrow. Now, I am dumb!” 


CHAPTER VIII. 

A HAND AT CARDS 

Happily unconscious of the new calamity at home, Miss 
Pross threaded her way along the narrow streets, and crossed 
the river by the bridge of the Pont-Neuf, reckoning in her 
mind the number of indispensable purchases she had to make. 
Mr. Cruncher, with the basket, walked at her side. They 
both looked to the right and to the left into most of the shops 
they passed, had a wary eye for all gregarious assemblages 
of people, and turned out of their road to avoid any very ex¬ 
cited group of talkers. It was a raw evening, and the misty 
river, blurred to the eye with blazing lights and to the ear with 
harsh noises, showed where the barges were stationed in which 
the smiths worked, making guns for the Army of the Repub' 
lie. Woe to the man who played tricks with that Army, or 
got undeserved promotion in it! Better for him that his 
beard had never grow T n,for the National Razor 1 shaved him 
close. 

Having purchased a few small articles of grocery, and a 
measure of oil for the lamp, Miss Pross bethought herself of 
the wine they wanted. After peeping into several wine-shops, 
she stopped at the sign of The Good Republican Brutus of 
Antiquity , 2 not far from the National Palace, once (and twice) 
theTuileries, 3 where the aspect of things rather took her fancy. 

1 This became a common euphemism for the guillotine. 

3 The adoption of classical names was one of the most ridiculous affecta¬ 
tions of the Revolutionary period. Even individuals dropped their old 
names, if they wished to appear good republicans, and substituted names 
from the classics. Thus Pierre Andre Coffinhal, one of the most infamous 
judges of the Revolutionary Tribunal, changed his name toMucius Scaevola 
Coffinhal. 

3 It was called the National Palace after the tenth of May, 1798, when 
the National Convention began to hold its sittings there. The name TulT 
eries was restored by Napoleon I. 


409 


410 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


ft had a quieter look than any other place of the same descrip¬ 
tion they had passed, and, though red with patriotic caps, 
was not so red as the rest. Sounding Mr. Cruncher, and find¬ 
ing him of her opinion, Miss Pross resorted to The Good 
Republican Brutus of Antiquity, attended by her cavalier. 

Slightly observant of the smoky lights; of the people, pipe 
in mouth, playing with limp cards and yellow dominoes; of 
the one bare-breasted, bare-armed, soot-begrimed workman 
reading a journal aloud, and of the others listening to him; 
of the weapons worn, or laid aside to be resumed; of the two 
or three customers fallen forward asleep, who in the popular 
high-shouldered shaggy black spencer looked, in that atti¬ 
tude, like slumbering bears or dogs; the two outlandish cus¬ 
tomers approached the counter, and showed what they 
wanted. 

As their wine was measuring out, a man parted from an¬ 
other man in a corner, and rose to depart. In going, he had 
to face Miss Pross. No sooner did he face her, than Miss 
Pross uttered a scream, and clapped her hands. 

In a moment, the whole company were on their feet. That 
somebody was assassinated by somebody vindicating a differ¬ 
ence of opinion was the likeliest occurrence. Everybody 
looked to see somebody fall, but only saw a man and a woman 
standing staring at each other; the man with all the outward 
aspect of a Frenchman and a thorough Republican; the 
woman, evidently English. 

What was said in .this disappointing anti-climax, by the 
disciples of the Good Republican Brutus of Antiquity, except 
that it was something very voluble and loud, would have been 
as so much Hebrew or Chaldean to Miss Pross and her pro¬ 
tector, though they had been all ears. But, they had no ears 
for anything in their surprise. For, it must be recorded, that 
not only wasMiss Pross lost in amazement and agitation, but, 


A HAND AT CARDS 


411 


Mr. Cruncher—though it seemed on his own separate and 
individual account—was in a state of the greatest wonder. 

What is the matter?” said the man who had caused Miss 
Pross to scream; speaking in a vexed, abrupt voice (though 
in a low tone), and in English. 

Oh, Solomon, dear Solomon!” cried Miss Pross, clapping 
her hands again. “After not setting eyes upon you or hearing 
of you for so long a time, do I find you here!” 

“Don’t call me Solomon. Do you want to be the death of 
me?” asked the man, in a furtive, frightened way. 

“Brother, brother!” cried Miss Pross, bursting into tears. 
“Have I ever been so hard with you that you ask me such a 
cruel question?” 

“Then hold your meddlesome tongue,” said Solomon, “and 
come out, if you want to speak to me. Pay for your wine, 
and come out. Who’s this man?” 

Miss Pross, shaking her loving and dejected head at her 
by no means affectionate brother, said through her tears, 
“Mr. Cruncher.” 

“Let him come out too,” said Solomon. “Does he think 
me a ghost?” 

Apparently, Mr. Cruncher did, to judge from his looks. 
He said not a word, however, and Miss Pross, exploring the 
depths of her reticule through her tears with great difficulty, 
paid for her wine. As she did so, Solomon turned to the fol¬ 
lowers of the Good Republican Brutus of Antiquity, and 
offered a few words of explanation in the French language, 
which caused them all to relapse into their former places and 
r -rsuits. 

“Now," said Solomon, stopping at the dark street corner, 
“what do you want?” 

“How dreadfully unkind in a brother nothing has ever 


412 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


turned my love away from'” cried Miss Pross, to give me 
such a greeting, and show me no affection. 

“There. Con-found it! There,” said Solomon, making a 
dab at Miss Pross’s lips with his own. “Now are you 
content ?” 

Miss Pross only shook her head and wept in silence. 

“If you expect me to be surprised,” said her brother Solo¬ 
mon, “I am not surprised; I knew you were here; I know of 
most people who are here. If you really don’t want to en¬ 
danger my existence—which I half believe you do go your 
ways as soon as possible, and let me go mine. I am busy. 

I am an official.” 

“My English brother Solomon,” mourned Miss Pross, cast¬ 
ing up her tear-fraught eyes, “that had the makings in him 
of one of the best and greatest of men in his native country, 
an official among foreigners, and such foreigners! I would 
almost sooner have seen the dear boy lying in his ” 

“I said so,” said her brother, interrupting. “I knew it. 
You want to be the death of me. I shall be rendered 
Suspected, by my own sister. Just as I am getting on!” 

“The gracious and merciful Heavens forbid!” cried Miss 
Pross. Tar rather would I never see you again, dear Solo¬ 
mon, though I have ever loved you truly, and ever shall 
Say but one affectionate word to me, and tell me there is 
nothing angry or estranged between us, and I will detain you 
no longer.” 

Good Miss Pross! As if the estrangement between them 
had come of any culpability of hers. As if Mr. Lorry had 
not known it for a fact, years ago, in the quiet corner in Soho, 
that this precious brother had spent her money and left her! 

He was saying the affectionate word, however, with a far 
more grudging condescension and patronage than he could 
have shown if their relative merits and positions had been 


A HAND A'J' CARDS 


413 


reversed (which is invariably the case, all the world over), 
when Mr. Cruncher, touching him on the shoulder, hoarsely 
and unexpectedly interposed with the following singular 
question: 

“I say! Might I ask the favour? As to whether your 
name is John Solomon, or Solomon John?” 

The official turned towards him with sudden distrust. He 
had not previously uttered a word. 

“Come!” said Mr. Cruncher. “Speak out, you know.” 
(Which, by the way, was more than he could do himself.) 
“John Solomon, or Solomon John? She calls you Solomon, 
and she must know, being your sister. And I know you’re 
John* you know. Which of the two goes first? And re¬ 
garding that name of Pross, likewise. That warn’t your 
name over the water.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Well, I don’t know all I mean, for I can’t call to mind 
what your name was, over the water.” 

“No?” 

“No. But I’ll swear it was a name of two syllables.” 
“Indeed?” 

“Yes. T’other one’s was one syllable. I know you. You 
was a spy-witness at the Bailey. What, in the name of the 
Father of Lies, own father to yourself, was you called at that 
,time?” 

“Barsad,” said another voice, striking in. 

“That’s the name for a thousand pound!” cried Jerry. 

The speaker who struck in, was Sydney Carton. He had 
his hands behind him under the skirts of his riding-coat, and 
he stood at Mr. Cruncher’s elbow as negligently as he might 
have stood at the Old Bailey itself. 

“Don’t be alarmed, my dear Miss Pross. I arrived at Mr. 
Lorry s, to his surprise, yesterday evening; we agreed that I 


414 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


would not present myself elsewhere until all was well, or 
unless I could be useful; I present myself here, to beg a little 
talk with your brother. I wish you had a better employed 
brother than Mr. Barsad. I wish for your sake Mr. Barsad 
was not a Sheep of the Prisons.” 

Sheep was a cant word of the time for a spy , 1 under the 
gaolers.* The spy, who was pale, turned paler, and asked 
him how he dared- 

‘Til tell you,” said Sydney. “I lighted on you, Mr. Bar¬ 
sad, coming out of the prison of the Conciergerie while I was 
contemplating the walls, an hour or more ago. You have 
a face to be remembered, and I remember faces well. Made 
curious by seeing you in that connection, and having a reason, 
to which you are no stranger, for associating you with the 
misfortunes of a friend now very unfortunate, I walked in 
your direction. I walked into the wine-shop here, close after 
you, and sat near you. I had no difficulty in deducing from 
your unreserved conversation, and the rumour openly going 
about among your admirers, the nature of your calling. And 
gradually, what I had done at random, seemed to shape itself 
into a purpose,Mr. Barsad.” 

“What purpose?” the spy asked. 

“It would be troublesome, and might be dangerous, to 
explain in the street. Could you favour me, in confidence, 
with some minutes of your company—at the office of Tellson’s 
Bank, for instance?” 

“Under a threat?” 

“Oh! Did I say that?” 

“Then, why should I go there?” 

“Really,Mr. Barsad, I can’t say, if you can’t.” 

1 Garat, while Minister of the Interior, employed a great number of 
police “observers” or spies. 


A HAND AT CARDS 


415 


Do you mean that you won’t say, sir?” the spy irreso¬ 
lutely asked. 

"You apprehend me very clearly, Mr Barsad. I won’t,” 

Carton s negligent recklessness of manner came powerfully 
in aid of his quickness and skill, in such a business as he had 
in his secret mind, and with such a man as he had to do with. 
His practised eye saw it, and made the most of it. 

Now, I told you so,” said the spy, casting a reproachful 
look at his sister; “if any trouble comes of this, it’s your 
doing.” 

“Come, come, Mr. Barsad!” exclaimed Sydney. “Don’t 
be ungrateful. But for my great respect for your sister, 1 
might not have led up so pleasantly to a little proposal 
that I wish to make for our mutual satisfaction. Do you go 
with me to the Bank?” 

“I’ll hear what you have got to say. Yes, I’ll go with 
you.” 

“I propose that we first conduct your sister safely to the 
corner of her own street. Let me take your arm, Miss Pross. 
This is not a good city, at this time, for you to be out in, un¬ 
protected; and as your escort knows Mr. Barsad, I will invite 
him to Mr. Lorry’s with us. Are we ready? Come then!” 

Miss Pross recalled soon afterwards, and to the end of her 
life remembered, that as she pressed her hands on Sydney’s 
arm and looked up in his face, imploring him to do no hurt to 
Solomon, there was a braced purpose in the arm and a kind 
of inspiration in the eyes, which not only contradicted his 
light manner, but changed and raised the man. She was too 
much occupied then with fears for the brother who so little 
deserved her affection, and with Sydney’s friendly reassur¬ 
ances, adequately to heed what she observed. 

They left her at the corner of the street, and Carton led 
the way to Mr. Lorry’s, which was within a few minutes’ 


416 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


walk. John Barsad, or Solomon Pross, walked at his side 

Mr. Lorry had just finished his dinner, and was sitting be¬ 
fore a cheery little log or two of fire—perhaps looking into 
their blaze for the picture of that younger elderly gentleman 
from Tellson’s, who had looked into the red coals at the Royal 
George at Dover, now a good many years ago. He turned 
his head as they entered, and showed the surprise with which 
he saw a stranger. 

“Miss Pross’s brother, sir,” said Sydney. “Mr. Barsad.” 

“Barsad?” repeated the old gentleman, “Barsad? I have 
an association with the name—and with the face.” 

“I told you you had a remarkable face, Mr. Barsad,” ob¬ 
served Carton, coolly. “Pray sit down.” 

As he took a chair himself, he supplied the link that Mr. 
Lorry wanted, by saying to him with a frown, “Witness at 
that trial.” Mr. Lorry immediately remembered, and re¬ 
garded his new visitor with an undisguised look of abhor¬ 
rence. 

“Mr. Barsad has been recognised by Miss Pross as the 
affectionate brother you have heard of,” said Sydney, “and 
has acknowledged the relationship. I pass to worse news. 
Damay has been arrested again.” 

Struck with consternation, the old gentleman exclaimed, 
“What do you tell me! I left him safe and free within these 
two hours, and am about to return to him!” 

“Arrested for all that. When was it done, Mr. Barsad?” 

“Just now, if at all.” 

“Mr. Barsad is the best authority possible, sir,” said Syd¬ 
ney, “and I have it from Mr. Barsad's communication to a 
friend and brother Sheep over a bottle of wine, that the arrest 
has taken place. He left the messengers at the gate, and saw 
them admitted by the porter. There is no earthly doubt that 
he is retaken.” 


A HAND AT CARDS 


417 


Mr. Lorry’s business eye read in the speaker’s face that it 
was loss of time to dwell upon the point. Confused, but sen¬ 
sible that something might depend on his presence of mind, 
he commanded himself, and was silently attentive. 

‘‘Now, I trust,” said Sydney to him, “that the name and 
influence of Doctor Manette may stand him in as good stead 
to-morrow—you said he would be before the Tribunal again 
to-morrow, Mr. Barsad?- [ 

“Yes; I believe so.” 

“—In as good stead to-morrow as to-day. But it may not 
be so. I own to you, I am shaken, Mr. Lorry, by Doctor 
Manette’s not having had the power to prevent this arrest.” 

“He may not have known of it beforehand,” said Mr. 
Lorry. 

“But that very circumstance would be alarming, when we 
remember how identified he is with his son-in-law.” 

“That’s true,” Mr. Lorry acknowledged, with his troubled 
hand at his chin, and his troubled eyes on Carton. 

“In short,” said Sydney, “this is a desperate time, when 
desperate games are played for desperate stakes. Let the 
Doctor play the winning game; I will play the losing one. No 
man’s life here is worth purchase. Any one carried home by 
the people to-day, may be condemned to-morrow. Now, 
the stake I have resolved to play for, in case of the worst, is 
a friend in the Conciergerie. And the friend I purpose to 
myself to win, is Mr. Barsad.” 

“You need have good cards, sir,” said the spy. 

“I’ll run them over. I’ll see what I hold.—Mr. Lorry, you 
know what a brute I am; I wish you’d give me a little 
brandy.” 

It was put before him, and he drank off a glassful drank 
off another glassful—pushed the bottle thoughtfully away. 

“Mr. Barsad.” he went on, in the tone of one who really 


418 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


was looking over a hand at cards: “Sheep of the prisons, 
emissary of Republican committees, now turnkey, now 
prisoner, always spy and secret informer, so much the more 
valuable here for being English that an Englishman is less 
open to suspicion of subornation in those characters than a 
Frenchman, represents himself to his employers under a false 
name. That’s a very good card. Mr. Barsad, now in the 
employ of the republican French government, was formerly 
in the employ of the aristocratic English government, the 
enemy of France and freedom. That’s an excellent card. 
Inference clear as day in this region of suspicion, that Mr. 
Barsad, still in the pay of the aristocratic English govern¬ 
ment, is the spy of Pitt, the treacherous foe of the Republic 
crouching in its bosom, the English traitor and agent of all 
mischief, so much spoken of and so difficult to find. That’s a 
card not to be beaten. Have you followed my hand, Mr. 
Barsad?” 

“Not to understand your play,” returned the spy, some¬ 
what uneasily. 

“I play my Ace, Denunciation of Mr. Barsad to the nearest 
Section Committee. Look over your hand, Mr. Barsad, and 
s«e what you have. Don’t hurry.” 

He drew the bottle near, poured out another glassful of 
brandy, and drank it off. He saw that the spy was fearful 
of his drinking himself into a fit state for the immediate de¬ 
nunciation of him. Seeing it, he poured out and drank 
another glassful. 

“Look over your hand carefully, Mr. Barsad. Take time.” 

It was a poorer hand than he suspected. Mr. Barsad saw 
losing cards in it that Sydney Carton knew nothing of. 
Thrown out of his honourable employment in England, 
through too much unsuccessful hard swearing there—not 
because he was not wanted there: our English reasons for 


A HAND AT CARDS 


419 


vaunting our superiority to secrecy and'spies are of very 
modern date—he knew that he had crossed the Channel, and 
accepted service in France: first, as a tempter and an eaves¬ 
dropper among his own countrymen there: gradually, as a 
tempter and an eavesdropper among the natives. He knew 
that under the overthrown government he had been a spy 
upon Saint Antoine and Defarge’s wine-shop; had received 
x from the watchful police such heads of information concerning 
Doctor Manette’s imprisonment, release, and history, as 
should serve him for an introduction to familiar conversation 
with the Defarges; and tried them on Madame Defarge, and 
had broken down with them signally. He always remem¬ 
bered with fear and trembling, that that terrible woman had 
knitted when he talked with her, and had looked ominously 
at him as her fingers moved. He had since seen her, in the 
Section of Saint Antoine, over and over again produce her 
knitted registers, and denounce people whose lives the guillo¬ 
tine then surely swallowed up. He knew, as every one em¬ 
ployed as he was did, that he was never safe; that flight was 
impossible; that he was tied fast under the shadow of the axe; 
and that in spite of his utmost tergiversation and treachery in 
furtherance of the reigning terror, a word might bring it down 
upon him. Once denounced, and on such grave grounds as 
had just now been suggested to his mind, he foresaw that 
the dreadful woman of whose unrelenting character he had 
seen many proofs, would produce against him that fatal 
register, and w T ould quash his last chance of life. Besides 
that all secret men are men soon terrified, here were surely 
cards enough of one black suit, to justify the holder in grow¬ 
ing rather livid as he turned them over. 

“You scarcely seem to like your hand,” said Sydney, with 
the greatest composure. “Do you play?” 

“I think, sir,” said the spy, in the metyiest manner, as he 


420 


a tale of two cities 


turned to Mr. Lorry, “I may appeal to a gentleman of your 
years and benevolence, to put it to this other gentleman, so 
much your junior, whether he can under any circumstances 
reconcile it to his station to play that Ace of which he has 
spoken. I admit that I am a spy, and that it is considered 
a discreditable station—though it must be filled by some¬ 
body; but this gentleman is no spy, and why should he so 
demean himself as to make himself one?” 

“I play my Ace, Mr. Barsad,” said Carton, taking the 
answer on himself, and looking at his watch, “without any 
scruple, in a very few minutes.” 

“I should have hoped, gentlemen both,” said the spy, 
always striving to hook Mr. Lorry into the discussion, “that 
your respect for my sister-” 

“I could not better testify my respect for your sister than 
by finally relieving her of her brother,” said Sydney Carton. 

“You think not, sir?” 

“I have thoroughly made up my mind about it.” 

The smooth manner of the spy, curiously in dissonance 
with his ostentatiously rough dress, and probably with his 
usual demeanour, received such a check from the inscruta¬ 
bility of Carton,—who was a mystery to wiser and honester 
men than he,—that it faltered here and failed him. While he 
was at a loss, Carton said, resuming his former air of contem¬ 
plating cards: 

“And indeed, now I think again, I have a strong impression 
that I have another good card here, not yet enumerated. 
That friend and fellow-Sheep, who spoke of himself as pas¬ 
turing in the country prisons; who was he?” 

“French. You don’t know him,” said the spy, quickly. 

“French, eh?” repeated Carton, musing, and not appearing 
to notice him at all, though he echoed his word. “Well; he 
may be.” 


A HAND AT CARDS 


421 


“Is, I assure you,” said the spy; “though it’s not impor¬ 
tant.” 

' Though it’s not important,” repeated Carton, in the same 

mechanical way—“though it’s not important-No, it’s not 

important. No. Yet I know the face.” 

“I think not. I am sure not. It can’t be,” said the spy. 

“It—can’t—be,” muttered Sydney Carton, retrospectively, 
and filling his glass (which fortunately was a small one) again. 
“Can’t—be. Spoke good French. Yet like a foreigner, I 
thought?” 

“Provincial,” said the spy. 

“No. Foreign!” cried Carton, striking his open hand on 
the table, as a light broke clearly on his mind. “Cly! Dis¬ 
guised, but the same man. We had that man before us at 
the Old Bailey.” 

“Now, there you are hasty, sir,” said Barsad, with a smile 
that gave his aquiline nose an extra inclination to one side; 
“there you really give me an advantage over you. Cly (who 
I will unreservedly admit, at this distance of time, was a 
partner of mine) has been dead several years. I attended 
him in his last illness. He was buried in London, at the 
church of Saint Pancras-in-the-Fields. His unpopularity 
with the blackguard multitude at the moment prevented my 
following his remains, but I helped to lay him in his coffin.” 

Here, Mr. Lorry became aware, from where he sat, of a 
most remarkable goblin shadow on the wall. Tracing it to 
its source, he discovered it to be caused by a sudden extra¬ 
ordinary rising and stiffening of all the risen and stiff hair on 
Mr. Cruncher’s head. 

“Let us be reasonable,” said the spy, “and let us be fair. 
To show you how mistaken you are, and what an unfounded 
assumption yours is I will lay before you a certificate of Cly’a 
burial, which i happen to have carried in my pocket-book.’ 


422 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


with a hurried hand he produced and opened it, “ever since. 
There it is. Oh, look at it, look at it! You may take it in 
your hand; it’s no forgery.” 

Here, Mr. Lorry perceived the reflection on the wall to 
elongate, and Mr. Cruncher rose and stepped forward. His 
hair could not have been more violently on end, if it had 
been that moment dressed by the Cow with the crumpled 
horn in the house that Jack built. 

Unseen by the spy, Mr. Cruncher stood at his side, and 
touched him on the shoulder like a ghostly bailiff. 

“That there Roger Cly, master,” said Mr. Cruncher, with 
a taciturn and iron-bound visage. “So you put him in his 
coffin?” 

“I did.” 

“Who took him out of it?” 

Barsad leaned back in his chair, and stammered, “What 
do you mean?” 

“I mean,” said Mr. Cruncher, “that he warn’t never in 
it No! Not he! Til have my head took off, if he was 
ever in it.” 

The spy looked round at the two gentlemen; they both 
looked in unspeakable astonishment at Jerry. 

“I tell you,” said Jerry, “that you buried paving-stones 
and earth in that there coffin. Don’t go and tell me that 
you buried Cly. It was a take in. Me and two more 
knows it.” 

“How do you know it?” 

“What’s that to you? Ecod!” 1 growled Mr. Cruncher, 
“it’s you I have got a old grudge again, is it, with your 
shameful impositions upon tradesmen! I’d catch hold of 
your throat and choke you for half a guinea.” 

Sydney Carton, who, with Mr. Lorry, had been lost in 

i The more common form of this oath is egad. It is, of course a cor¬ 
ruption of “by God.” ’ w* 


A HAND AT CARDS 


423 


amazement at this turn of the business, here requested Mr. 
Cruncher to moderate and explain himself. 

“At another time,'sir,” he returned, evasively, “the present 
time is ill-conwenient for explainin’. What I stand to, is, 
that he knows well wot that there Cly was never in that 
there coffin. Let him say he was, in so much as a word of 
one syllable, and I’ll either catch hold of his throat and 
choke him for half a guinea;” Mr. Cruncher dwelt upon this 
as quite a liberal offer; “or I’ll out and announce him.” 

“Humph! I see one thing,” said Carton. “I hold an¬ 
other card, Mr. Barsad. Impossible, here in raging Paris, 
4\ith Suspicion filling the air, for you to outlive denunciation, 
AVhen you are in communication with another aristocratic 
spy of the same antecedents as yourself, who, moreover, has 
the mystery about him of having feigned death and come to 
life again! A plot in the prisons, of the foreigner against 
the Republic. A strong card—a certain Guillotine card! Do 
you play?” 

“No!” returned the spy. “I throw up. I confess that we 
were so unpopular with the outrageous mob, that I only got 
away from England at the risk of being ducked to death, and 
that Cly was so ferreted up and down, that he never would 
have got away at all but for that sham. Though how this 
man knows it-was a sham, is a wonder of wonders to me.” 

“Never you trouble your head about this man,” retorted 
the contentious Mr. Cruncher; “you’ll have trouble enough 
with giving your attention to that gentleman. And look 
here! Once more!”—Mr. Cruncher could not be restrained 
from making rather an ostentatious parade of his liber¬ 
ality—“I’d catch hold of your throat and choke you for 
half a guinea.” 

The Sheep of the prisons turned from him to Sydney 
Carton, and said, with more decision, “It has come to a 


424 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


point. I go on duty soon, and can't overstay my time. You 
told me you had a proposal; what is it? Now, it is of no use 
asking too much of me. Ask me to do anything in my office, 
putting my head in great extra danger, and I had better 
trust my life to the chances of a.refusal than the chances of 
consent. In short, I should make that choice. You talk 
of desperation. We are all desperate here. Remember! I 
may denounce you if I think proper, and I can swear my way 
through stone walls, and so can others. Now, what do you 
want with me?" 

“Not very much. You are a turnkey at the Conciergerie?” 

“I tell you once for all, there is no such thing as an 
escape possible," said the spy, firmly. 

“Why need you tell me what I have not asked? You 
are a turnkey at the Conciergerie?" 

“I am sometimes." 

“You can be when you choose." 

“I can pass in and out when I choose." 

Sydney Carton filled another glass with brandy, poured it 
slowly out upon the hearth, and watched it as it dropped. 
It being all spent, he said, rising: 

“So far, we have spoken before these two, because it was 
as well that the merits of the cards should not rest solely 
between you and me. Come into the dark room here, and 
let us have one final word alone." 


CHAPTER IX. 


THE GAME MADE 

While Sydney Carton and the Sheep of the prisons were in 
the adjoining dark room, speaking so low that not a sound 
was heard, Mr. Lorry looked at Jerry in considerable doubt 
and mistrust. That honest tradesman’s manner of receiving 
the look, did not inspire confidence; he changed the leg on 
which he rested, as often as if he had fifty of those limbs, 
and were trying them all; he examined his finger-nails with 
a very questionable closeness of attention; and whenever Mr. 
Lorry’s eye caught his, he was taken with that peculiar kind 
of short cough requiring the hollow of a hand before it, 
which is seldom, if ever, known to be an infirmity attendant 
on perfect openness of character. 

“Jerry,” said Mr. Lorry. “Come here.” 

Mr. Cruncher came forward sideways, with one of his 
shoulders in advance of him. 

“What have you been, besides a messenger?” 

After some cogitation, accompanied with an intent look at 
his patron, Mr. Cruncher conceived the luminous idea of 
replying, “Agricultooral character.” 

“My mind misgives me much,” said Mr. Lorry, angrily 
shaking a forefinger at him, “that you have used the respect¬ 
able and great house of Tellson’s as a blind, and that you 
have had an unlawful occupation of an infamous description. 
If you have, don’t expect me to befriend you when you get 
back to England. If you have, don’t expect me to keep your 
secret. Tellson’s shall not be imposed upon.” 

“I hope, sir,” pleaded the abashed Mr. Cruncher, “that a 

425 


426 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


gentleman like yourself wot I’ve had the honour of odd 
jobbing till I’m grey at it, would think twice about harming 
of me, even if it wos so—I don’t say it is, but even if it wos. 
And which it is to be took into account that if it wos, it 
wouldn’t, even then, be all o’ one side. There’d be two sides 
to it. There might be medical doctors at the present hour, 
a picking up their guineas where a honest tradesman don’t 
pick up his fardens—fardens! no, nor yet his half fardens— 
half fardens! no, nor yet his quarter—a banking away like 
smoke atTellson’s, and a cocking their medical eyes at that 
tradesman on the sly, a going in and going out to their own 
carriages—ah! equally like smoke, if not more so. Well, 
that ud be imposing, too, on Tellson’s. For you cannot 
sarse the goose and not the gander. And here’s Mrs. 
Cruncher, or leastways wos in the Old England times, and 
would be to-morrow, if cause given, a floppin’ again the 
business to that degree as is ruinating—stark ruinating! 
Whereas them medical doctor’s wives don’t flop—catch ’em 
at it! Or, if they flop, their floppings goes in favour of 
more patients, and how can you rightly have one without the 
t’other? Then, wot wdth undertakers, and wot with parish 
clerks, and wot with sextons, and wot with private watchmen 
(all awaricious and all in it), a man wouldn’t get much by 
it, even if it wos so. And wot little a man did get, would 
never prosper with him, Mr. Lorry. He’d never have no 
good of it; he’d want all along to be out of the line, if he 
could see his way out, being once in—even if it wos so.” 

“Ugh!” cried Mr. Lorry, rather relenting, nevertheless. 
‘I am shocked at the sight of you.” 

“Now, wdiat I would humbly offer to you, sir,” pursued 
Mr. Cruncher, even if it w 7 os so, which I don’t say it is-” 

“Don’t prevaricate,” said Mr. Lorry. 

“No, I will not, sir,” returned Mr. Cruncher, as if nothing 


THE GAME MADE 


427 


were further from his thoughts or practice—“which I don’t 
say it is—wot I would humbly offer to you, sir, would be 
this. Upon that there stool, at that there Bar, sets that 
there boy of mine, brought up and growed up to be a man, 
wot will errand you, message you, general'-light-job you, till 
your heels is where your head is, if such should be your 
wishes. If it wos so, which I still don’t say it is (for I will 
not prewaricate to you, sir), let that there boy keep his 
father’s place, and take care of his mother; don’t blow 
upon that boy’s father—do not do it, sir—and let that 
father go into the line of the reg’lar diggin’, and make 
amends for what he would have un-dug—if it wos so—by 
diggin’ of ’em in with a will, and with conwictions respectin’ 
the futur’ keepin’ of ’em safe. That, Mr. Lorry,” said Mr. 
Cruncher, wiping his forehead with his arm, as an announce¬ 
ment that he had arrived at the peroration of his discourse, 
“is wot I would respectfully offer to you, sir. A man don’t 
see all this here a goin’ on dreadful round him, in the way of 
Subjects without heads, dear me, plentiful enough fur to 
bring the price down to porterage and hardly that, without 
havin’ his serious thoughts of things. And these here would ** 
be mine, if it wos so, entreatin’ of you fur to bear in mind 
that wot I said just now, I up and said in the good cause 
when I might have kep’ it back.” 

“That at least is true,” said Mr. Lorry. “Say no more 
now. It may be that I shall yet stand your friend, if you 
deserve it, and repent in action—not in words. I want no 
more words.” 

Mr. Cruncher knuckled his forehead, as Sydney Carton 
and the spy returned from the dark room. “Adieu, Mr. 
Barsad,” said the former; “our arrangement thus made, you 
have nothing to fear from me.” 

He sat down in a chair on the hearth, over against Mr. 


428 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Lorry. When they were alone, Mr. Lorry asked him what 
he had done? 

‘‘Not much. If it should go ill with the prisoner, I have 
ensured access to him, once.” 

Mr. Lorry’s countenance fell. 

“It is all I could do,” said Carton. “To propose too 
much, would be to put this man’s head under the axe, and, 
as he himself said, nothing worse could happen to him if he 
were denounced. It was obviously the weakness of the 
position. There is no help for it.” 

“But access to him,” said Mr. Lorry, “if it should go ill 
before the Tribunal, will not save him.” 

“I never said it would.” 

Mr. Lorry’s eyes gradually sought the fire; his sympathy 
with his darling, and the heavy disappointment of this 
second arrest, gradually weakened them; he was an old man 
now, overborne with anxiety of late, and his tears fell. 

“You are a good man and a true friend,” said Carton, in 
an altered voice. “Forgive me if I notice that you are 
affected. I could not see my father weep, and sit by, careless. 
And I could not respect your sorrow more, if you were my 
father. You are free from that misfortune, however.” 

Though he said the last words, with a slip into his usual 
manner, there was a true feeling and respect both in his tone 
and in his touch, that Mr. Lorry, who had never seen the 
better side of him, was wholly unprepared for. He gave him 
his hand, and Carton gently pressed it. 

“To return to poor Darnay,” said Carton. “Don’t tell 
Her of this interview, or this arrangement. It would not 
enable Her to go to see him. She might think it was con¬ 
trived, in case of the worst, to convey to him the means of 
anticipating the sentence.” 

Mr. Lorry had not thought of that, and he looked quickly 


THE GAME MADE 


429 


at Carton to see if it were in his mind. It seemed to be; 
returned the look, and evidently understood it. 

‘She might think a thousand things,” Carton said, “and 
any of them would only add to her trouble. Don’t speak 
of me to her. As I said to you when I first came, I had 
better not see her. I can put my hand out, to do any little 
helpful v.ork for her that my hand can find to do, without 
that. You are going to her, I hope? She must be very 
desolate to-night.” 

“I am going now, directly.” 

“I am glad of that. She has such a strong attachment to 
you and reliance on you. How does she look?” 

“Anxious and unhappy, but very beautiful.” 

“Ah!” 

It was a long, grieving sound, like a sigh—almost like a 
sob. It attracted Mr. Lorry’s eyes to Carton’s face, which 
was turned to the fire. A light, or a shade (the old gentle¬ 
man could not have said which), passed from it as swiftly as 
a change will sweep over a hill-side on a wild bright day, 
and he lifted his foot to put back one of the little flaming 
logs, which was tumbling forward. He wore the wdiite 
riding-coat and top-boots, then in vogue, and the light of 
the fire touching their light surfaces made him look very 
pale, with his long brown hair, all untrimmed, hanging loose 
about him. His indifference to fire w r as sufficiently remark¬ 
able to elicit a word of remonstrance from Mr. Lorry; hi. c 
boot was still upon the hot embers of the flaming log, when 
it had broken under the weight of his boot. 

“I forgot it,” he said. 

Mr. Lorry’s eyes were again attracted to his face. Taking 
note of the wasted air which clouded the naturally handsome 
features, and having the expression of prisoners’ faces fresh 
in his mind, he was strongly reminded of that expression. 


430 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“And your duties here have drawn to an end, sir?” said 
’ barton, turning to him. 

“Yes. As I was telling you last night when Lucie came 
in so unexpectedly, I have at length done all that I can do 
here. I hoped to have left them in perfect safety, and then 
to have quitted Paris. I have my Leave to Pass. I was 
ready to go.” 

They were both silent. 

“Yours is a long life to look back upon, sir?” said Carton, 
wistfully. 

“I am in my seventy-eighth year.” 

“You have been useful all your life; steadily and con¬ 
stantly occupied; trusted, respected, and looked up to?” 

“I have been a man of business, ever since I have been a 
man. Indeed, I may say that I was a man of business when 
a boy.” 

“See what a place you fill at seventy-eight. How many 
people will miss you when you leave it empty!” 

“A solitary old bachelor,” answered Mr. Lorry, shaking his 
head. “There is nobody to weep for me.” 

“How can you say that? Wouldn’t She weep for you? 
Wouldn’t her child?” 

“Yes, yes, thank God. I didn’t quite mean what I said.” 

“It is a thing to thank God for; is it not?” 

“Surely, surely.” 

“If you could say, with truth, to your own solitary heart, 
to-night, T have secured to myself the love and attachment, 
the gratitude or respect, of no human creature; I have won 
myself a tender place in no regard; I have done nothing 
good or serviceable to be remembered by!’ your seventy-eight 
years w T ould be seventy-eight heavy curses; would they not?” 

“You say truly, Mr. Carton; I think they would be.” 


THE GAME MADE 


431 


Sydney turned his eyes again upon the fire, and, after a 
silence of a few moments, said: 

I should like to ask you: — Does your childhood seem 
far off? Do the days when you sat at your mother’s knee, 
seem days of very long ago?” 

Responding to his softened manner, Mr. Lorry answered: 

“Twenty years back, yes; at this time of my life, no. For, 
as I draw closer and closer to the end, I travel in the circle, 
nearer and nearer to the beginning. It seems to be one of 
the kind smoothings and preparings of the way. My heart 
is touched now, by many remembrances that had long fallen 
asleep, of my pretty young mother (and I so old!), and by 
many associations of the days when what we call the World 
was not so real with me, and my faults were not confirmed 
in me.” 

“I understand the feeling!” exclaimed Carton, with a 
bright flush. “And you are the better for it?” 

“I hope so.” 

Carton terminated the conversation here, by rising to help 
him on -with his outer coat; “but you,” said Mr. Lorry, re¬ 
verting to the theme, “you are young.” 

“Yes,” said Carton. “I am not old, but my young way 
was never the way to age. Enough of me.” 

“And of me, I am sure,” said Mr. Lorry. “Are you going 
out?” 

“I’ll walk with you to her gate. You know my vagabond 
and restless habits. If I should prowl about the streets a 
long time, don’t be uneasy; I shall reappear in the morning. 
You go to the Court to-morrow?” 

“Yes, unhappily.” 

“I shall be there, but only as one of the crowd. My Spy 
will find a place for me. Take my arm, sir.” ^ 

. Mr. Lorry did so, and they went down-stairs and out in the 


432 ' 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


streets. A few minutes brought them to Mr. Lorry’s destina- 
tion. Carton left him there; but lingered at a little distance, 
and turned back to the gate again when it was shut and 
touched it. He had heard of her going to the prison every 
day. “She came out here,” he said, looking about him, 
“turned this way, must have trod on these stones often. Let 
me follow in her steps.” 

It was ten o’clock at night when he stood before the prison 
of La Force, where she had stood hundreds of times. A 
little wood-sawyer, having closed his shop, was smoking his 
pipe at his shop-door. 

“Good night, citizen,” said Sydney Carton, pausing in 
going by; for the man eyed him inquisitively. 

“Good night, citizen.” 

“How goes the Republic?” 

“You mean the Guillotine. Not ill. Sixty-three to-day. 
We shall mount to a hundred soon. Samson and his men 
complain sometimes, of being exhausted. Ha, ha, ha! He 
is so droll, that Samson. Such a Barber!” 

“Do you often go to see him—” 

“Shave? Always. Every day. What a barber! You 
have seen him at work?” 

“Never.” 

“Go and see him when he has a good batch. Figure this 
to yourself, citizen; he shaved the sixty-three to-day, in less 
than two pipes! Less than two pipes. Word of honour!” 

As the grinning little man held out the pipe he was smok¬ 
ing, to explain how he timed the executioner, Carton was 
so sensible of a rising desire to strike the life out of him, that 
he turned away. 

“But you are not English,” said the wood-sawyer, “though 
you wear English dress?” 


THE GAME MADE 


433 


“Yes,” said Carton, pausing again, and answering over his 
shoulder. 

“You speak like a Frenchman.” 

“I am an old student here.” 

“Aha, a perfect Frenchman! Good night, Englishman.” 

“Good night, citizen.” 

“But go and see that droll dog,” the little man persisted, 
calling after him. “And take a pipe with you!” 

Sydney had not gone far out of sight, when he stopped ir 
the middle of the street under a glimmering lamp, and wrote 
with his pencil on a scrap of paper. Then, traversing with 
the decided step of one who remembered the way well, several 
dark and dirty streets—much dirtier than usual, for the best 
public thoroughfares remained uncleansed in those times of 
terror—he stopped at a chemist’s shop, which the owner was 
closing with his owm hands. A small, dim, crooked shop, 
kept in a tortuous, up-hill thoroughfare, by a small, dim, 
crooked man. 

Giving this citizen, too, good night, as he confronted him 
at his counter, he laid the scrap of paper before him. 
“Whew!” the chemist whistled softly, as he read it. “Hi! 
hi! hi!” 

Sydney Carton took no heed, and the chemist said: 

“For you, citizen?” 

“For me.” 

“You will be careful to keep them separate, citizen? You 
know the consequences of mixing them?” 

“Perfectly.” 

Certain small packets w r ere made and given to him. He 
put them, one by one, in the breast of his inner coat, counted 
out the money for them, and deliberately left the shop. 
“There is nothing more to do,” said he, glancing upward 
at the moon, “until to-morrow. I can’t sleep.” 


434 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


It was not a reckless manner, the manner in which he said 
these words aloud under the fast-sailing cloud§, nor was it 
more expressive of negligence than defiance. It was the 
settled manner of a tired man, who had wandered and strug¬ 
gled and got lost, but who at length struck into his road and 
saw its end. 


Long ago, when he had been famous among his earliest 
competitors as a youth of great promise, he had followed his 
father to the grave. His mother had died, years before. 
These solemn words, which had been read at his father’s i 
grave, arose in his mind as he went down the dark streets, 
among the heavy shadows, with the moon and the cloud* «£>;]_ 
ing on high above him. “I am the resurrection and the life, 
saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, 
yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me' 
shall never die.” 

In a city dominated by the axe, alone at night, with natural 
sorrow rising in him for the sixty-three who had been that 
day put to death, and for to-morrow’s victims then awaiting 
their doom in the prisons, and still of to-morrow’s and to¬ 
morrow’s, the chain of association that brought the words 
home, like a rusty old ship’s anchor from the deep, might 
have been easily found. He did not seek it, but repeated 
them and went on. 

With a solemn interest in the'lighted windows where the 
people were going to rest, forgetful through a few calm hours 
ot the horrors surrounding them.; in the towers of the churches 
where no prayers were said, 1 for the popular revulsion had 
even travelled that length of self-destruction from years of 
priestly imposters, plunderers, and profligates; in the distant 
burial-places, reserved, as they wrote upon the gates, for 


‘the cause tslfbe fomd'cS/m Ihe^oS 3Seh ” tie OWHeSSl" 8 ' 




THE GAME MADE 


435 


Eternal Sleep; in the abounding gaols; and in the streets 
along which the sixties rolled to a death which had be¬ 
come so common and material, that no sorrowful story of a 
haunting Spirit ever arose among the people out of all the 
working of the Guillotine; with a solemn interest in the whole 
life and death of the city settling down to its short nightly 
pause in fury; Sydney Carton crossed the Seine again for the 
lighter streets. 

Few coaches were abroad, for riders in coaches were liable 
to be suspected, and gentility hid its head in red nightcaps, 
and put on heavy shoes, and trudged. But, the theatres 
'were all well filled, 1 and the people poured cheerfully out as 
he passed, and went chatting home. At one of the theatre 
doors, there was a little girl with a mother, looking for a way 
across the street through the mud. Fie carried the child 
over, and before the timid arm was loosed from his neck asked 
her for a kiss. 

“I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he 
that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: 
and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.” 

Now, that the streets were quiet, and the night wore on, 
the words were in the echoes of his feet, and were in the air. 
Perfectly calm and steady, he sometimes repeated them to 
himself as he walked; but, he heard them always. 

The night wore out, and, as he stood upon the bridge listen¬ 
ing to the water as it splashed the river-walls of the Island 
of Paris, where the picturesque confusion of houses and cathe¬ 
dral shone bright in the light of the moon, the day came cold¬ 
ly, looking like a dead face out of the sky. Then, the night, 
with the moon and the stars, turned pale and died, and for 
a little while it seemed as if Creation were delivered over to 
Death’s dominion. 

1 On the theatres during the period, see H. Morse Stephens, The French 
Revolution, Vol, II, Chap, x, p. 347. 


436 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


But, the glorious sun, rising, seemed to strike those words, 
that burden of the night, straight and warm to his heart in 
its long bright rays. And looking along them, with reverent¬ 
ly shaded eyes, a bridge of light appeared to span the air be¬ 
tween him and the sun, while the river sparkled under it. 

The strong tide, so swift, so deep, and certain, was like a 
congenial friend in the morning stillness. He walked by the 
stream, far from the houses, and in the light and warmth of 
the sun fell asleep on the bank. When he awoke and was 
afoot again, he lingered there yet a little longer, watching an 
eddy that turned and turned purposeless, until the stream 
absorbed it, and carried it on to the sea.—“Like me!” 

A trading-boat, with a sail of the softened colour of a dead 
leaf, then glided into his view, floated by him, and died away. 
As its silent track in the water disappeared, the prayer that 
had broken up out of his heart for a merciful consideration 
of all his poor blindnesses and errors, ended in the words, “I 
am the resurrection and the life.” 

Mr. Lorry was already out when he got back, and it was 
•easy to surmise where the good old man was gone. Sydney 
Carton drank nothing but a little coffee, ate some bread, and, 
having washed and changed to refresh himself, went out to 
the place of trial. 

The court was all astir and a-buzz, when the black sheep— 
whom many fell away from in dread—pressed him into an 
obscure .corner among the crowd. Mr. Lorry was there, and 
Doctor Manette was there. She was there, sitting beside 
her father. 

When her husband was brought in, she turned a look upon 
him, so sustaining, so encouraging, so full of admiring love 
and pitying tenderness, yet so courageous for his sake, that 
it called the healthy blood into his face, brightened his glance, 
and animated his heart. If there had been any eyes to notice 



THE GAME MADE 


437 


the influence of her look, on Sydney Carton, it would have 
been seen to be the same influence exactly. 

Before that unjust Tribunal, there was little or no order 
of procedure, ensuring to any accused person any reasonable 
hearing. There could have been no such Revolution, if all 
laws, forms, and ceremonies, had not first been so mon¬ 
strously abused, that the suicidal vengeance of the Revolu¬ 
tion was to scatter them all to the winds. 

Every eye was turned to the jury. The same determined 
patriots and good republicans as yesterday and the day be¬ 
fore, and to-morrow and the day after. Eager and promi¬ 
nent among them, one man with a craving face, and his fingers 
perpetually hovering about his lips, whose appearance gave 
great satisfaction to the spectators. A life-thirsting, can¬ 
nibal-looking, bloody-minded juryman, the Jacques Three 
of St. Antoine. The whole jury, as a jury of dogs empannelled 
to try the deer. 

Every eye then turned to the five judges and the public 
prosecutor. No favourable leaning in that quarter to-day. 
A fell, uncompromising, murderous business-meaning there. 
Every eye then sought some other eye in the crowd, and 
gleamed at it approvingly; and heads nodded at one another, 
before bending forward with a strained attention. 

Charles Evremonde, called Darnay. Released yesterday. 
Re-accused and retaken yesterday. Indictment delivered to 
him last night. Suspected and Denounced enemy of the 
Republic, 1 Aristocrat, one of a family of tyrants, one of a race 
proscribed, for that they had used their abolished privileges 
to the infamous oppression of the people. Charles Evr6- 


1 Anv one who heard a citizen make an anti-revolutionary remark, or 
who noticed anything suspicious about him, could forward a denunciation 
to a revolutionary committee. This committee was obliged to investigate 


the case at once. 


438 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


monde, called Darnay, in right of such proscription, absolute¬ 
ly Dead in Law. 

To this effect, in as few or fewer words, the Public Prose¬ 
cutor. 

The President asked, was the Accused openly denounced 
or secretly? 

“Openly, President.” 

“By whom?” 

“Three voices. Ernest Defarge, wine-vendor of St. An¬ 
toine.” 

“Good.” 

“Therese Defarge, his wife.” 

“Good.” 

“Alexandre Manette, physician.” 

A great uproar took place in the court, and in the midst of 
it, Doctor Manette was seen, pale and trembling, standing 
where he had been seated. 

“President, I indignantly protest to you that this is a 
forgery and a fraud. You know the accused to be the hus¬ 
band of my daughter. My daughter, and those dear to her, 
are far dearer to me than my life. Who and where is the 
false conspirator who says that I denounce the husband of 
my child?” 

“Citizen Manette, be tranquil. To fail in submission to 
the authority of the Tribunal would be to put yourself out 
of Law. As to what is dearer to you than life, nothing can 
be so dear to a good citizen as the Republic.” 

Loud acclamations hailed this rebuke. The President 
rang his bell, and with warmth resumed: 

“If the Republic should demand of you the sacrifice of 
your child herself, you would have no duty but to sacrifice 
her. Listen to what is to follow. In the meanwhile, be 
silent!” 



THE GAME MADE 


439 


Frantic acclamations were again raised. Doctor Manette 
sat down, with his eyes looking around, and his lips trembling; 
his daughter drew closer to him. The craving man on the 
jury rubbed his hands together, and restored the usual hand 
to his mouth. 

Defarge was produced, when the court was quiet enough 
to admit of his being heard, and rapidly expounded the story 
of the imprisonment, and of his having been a mere boy in 
the Doctor s service, and of the release, and of the state of 
the prisoner when released and delivered to him. This short 
examination followed, for the court was quick with its work. 

“You did good service at the taking of the Bastille, citi¬ 
zen r 

“I believe so.” 

Here an excited woman screeched from the crowd: “You 
were one of the best patriots there. Why not say so? You 
were a cannonier that day there, and you were among the 
first to enter the accursed fortress when it fell. Patriots, I 
speak the truth!” 

It was The Vengeance who, amidst the warm commenda¬ 
tions of the audience, thus assisted the proceedings. The 
President rang his bell; but The Vengeance, warming with 
encouragement, shrieked, “I defy that bell!” wherein she 
was likewise much commended. 

“Inform the Tribunal of what you did that day within the 
Bastille, citizen.” 

“I knew,” said Defarge, looking down at his wife, who 
stood at the bottom of the steps on which he was raised, look¬ 
ing steadily up at him; “I knew that this prisoner, of whom 
I speak, had been confined in a cell known as One Hundred 
and Five, North Tower. I knew it from himself. He knew 
himself by no other name than One Hundred and Five, North 
Towner, when he made shoes under my care. As I serve my 


440 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


gun that day, I resolve, when the place shall fall, to examine 
that cell. It falls. I mount to the cell, with a fellow-citizen 
who is one of the Jury, directed by a gaoler. I examine it, 
very closely. In a hole in the chimney, where a stone has 
been worked out and replaced, I find a written paper. This 
is that written paper. I have made it my business to ex¬ 
amine some specimens of the writing of Doctor Manette. 
This is the writing of Doctor Manette. I confide this paper, 
in the writing of Doctor Manette, to the hands of the Presi¬ 
dent.” 

“Let it be read.” 

In a dead silence and stillness—the prisoner under trial 
looking lovingly at his wife, his wife only looking from him 
to look with solicitude at her father, Doctor Manette keeping 
his eyes fixed on the reader, Madame Defarge never taking 
hers from the prisoner, Defarge never taking hir from his 
feasting wife, and all the other eyes there intent upon the 
Doctor, who saw none of them-^the paper was rea L as fol 
lows. 


( 




CHAPTER X. 


THE SUBSTANCE OF THE SHADOW 

“I, Alexandre Manette, unfortunate physician, native 
of Beauvais, and afterwards resident in Paris, write this mel¬ 
ancholy paper in my doleful cell in the BastiUe, during th* 
last month of the year, 1767. I write it at stolen intervals 
under every difficulty. I design to secrete it in the wall of th( 
chimney, where I have slowly and laboriously made a place 
of concealment for it. Some pitying hand may find it there, 
when I and my sorrows are dust. 

“These words are formed by the rusty iron point with which 
I write with difficulty in scrapings of soot and charcoal 
from the chimney, mixed with blood, in the last month of 
the tenth year of my captivity. Hope has quite departed 
from my breast. I know from terrible warnings I have 
noted in myself that my reason will not long remain unim¬ 
paired, but I solemnly declare that I am at this time in the 
possession of my right mind—that my memory is exact and 
circumstantial—and that I write the truth as I shall answer 
for these my last recorded words, whether they be ever read 
by men or not, at the Eternal Judgment-seat. 

“One cloudy moonlight night, in the third week of Decem¬ 
ber (Pthink the twenty-second of the month) in the year 1757, 
I was walking on a retired part of the quay by the Seine for 
the refreshment of the frosty air, at an hour’s distance from 
my place of residence in the Street of the School of Medicine, 
when a carriage came along behind me, driven very fast. As 
I stood aside to let that carriage pass, apprehensive that it 

441 



442 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


might otherwise run me down, a head was put out at the win¬ 
dow, and a voice called to the driver to stop. 

“The carriage stopped as soon as the driver could rein in 
his horses, and the same voice called to me by my name. I 
.answered. The carriage was then so far in advance of me 
that two gentlemen had time to open the door and alight be¬ 
fore I came up with it. I observed that they were both 
wrapped in cloaks, and appeared to conceal themselves. As 
they stood side by side near the carriage door, I also observed 
that they both looked of about my own age, or rather younger, 
and that they were greatly alike, in stature, manner, voice, 
and (as far as I could see) face too. 

“ ‘You are Doctor Manette?’ said one. 

“ ‘I am/ 

“ ‘Doctor Manette, formerly of Beauvais/ said the other; 
‘the young physician, originally an expert surgeon, who with¬ 
in the last year or two has made a rising reputation in Paris?’ 

“ ‘Gentlemen/ I returned, ‘I am that Doctor Manette of 
whom you speak so graciously.’ 

“ ‘We have been to your residence/ said the first, ‘and not 
being so fortunate as to find you there, and being informed 
that you were probably walking in this direction, we followed, 
in the hope of overtaking you. Will you please to enter the 
carriage?’ 

“The manner of both was imperious, and they both moved, 
as these words were spoken, so as to place me between them¬ 
selves and the carriage door. They were armed. I was not. 

“ ‘Gentlemen,’ said I, ‘pardon me; but I usually inquire 
who does me the honour to seek my assistance, and what is 
the nature of the case to which I am summoned.’ 

“The reply to this was made by him who had spoken sec¬ 
ond. ‘Doctor, your clients are people of condition. As to 
the nature of the case, our confidence in your skill assures 





THE SUBSTANCE OF THE SHADOW 


443 


us that you will ascertain it for yourself better than we can 
describe it. Enough. Will you please to enter the carriage?’ 

“I could do nothing but comply, and I entered it in silence. 
They both entered after me—the last springing in, after put¬ 
ting up the steps. The carriage turned about, and drove on 
at its former speed. 

“I repeat this conversation exactly as it occurred. I have 
no doubt that it is, word for word, the same. I describe 
everything exactly as it took place, constraining my mind 
not to wander from the task. Where I make the broken 
marks that follow here, I leave off for the time, and put my 
paper in its hiding-place. * * * * 

“The carriage left the streets behind, passed the North 
Barrier, and emerged upon the country road. At two-thirds 
of a league from the Barrier—I did not estimate the distance 
at that time, but afterwards when I traversed it—it struck 
out of the main avenue, and presently stopped at a solitary 
liouse. We all three alighted, and walked, by a damp soft 
footpath in a garden where a neglected fountain had over¬ 
sowed, to the door of the house. It was not opened imme¬ 
diately, in answer to the ringing of the bell, and one of my 
two conductors struck the man who opened it, with his 
heavy riding-glove, across the face. 

“There was nothing in this action to attract my particular 
attention, for I had seen common people struck more com¬ 
monly than dogs. But, the other of the two, being angry 
likewise, struck the man in like manner with his arm; the 
look and bearing of the brothers were then so exactly alike, 
that I then first perceived them to be twin brothers. 

“From the time of our alighting at the outer gate (which 
we found locked, and which one of the brothers had opened 
to admit us, and had re-locked), I had heard cries proceeding 
from an upper chamber. I was conducted to this chamber 



444 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


straight, the cries growing louder as we ascended the stairs, 
and I found a patient in a high fever of the brain, lying on a 
bed. 

“The patient was a woman of great beauty, and young; 
assuredly not much past twenty. Her hair was torn and 
ragged, and her arms were bound to her sides with sashes and 
handkerchiefs. I noticed that these bonds were all portions 
of a gentleman’s dress. On one of them, which was a fringed 
scarf for a dress of ceremony, I saw the armorial bearings of 
a Noble, and the letter E. 

“I saw this, within the first minute of my contemplation 
of the patient; for, in her restless strivings she had turned 
over on her face on the edge of the bed, had drawn the end of 
the scarf into her mouth, and was in danger of suffocation. 
My first act was to put out my hand to relieve her breathing; 
and in moving the scarf aside, the embroidery in the corner 
caught my sight. 

“I turned her gently over, placed my hands upon her breast 
to calm her and keep her down, and looked into her face. 
Her eyes were dilated and wild, and she constantly uttered 
piercing shrieks, and repeated the words, ‘My husband, my 
father, and my brother!’ and then counted up to twelve, and 
said, ‘Hush!’ For an instant, and no more, she would pause 
to listen, and then the piercing shrieks would begin again, 
and she would repeat the cry, ‘My husband, my father, and 
my brother!’ and would count up to twelve, and say ‘Hush!’ 
There was no variation in the order, or the manner. There 
was no cessation, but the regular moment’s pause, in the 
utterance of these sounds. 

“ ‘How long,’ I asked, ‘has this lasted?’ 

“To distinguish the brothers, I will call them the elder and 
the younger; by the elder. I mean him who exercised the most 



THE SUBSTANCE OF THE SHADOW 


445 


authority. It was the elder who replied, ‘Since about this 
I hour last night/ 

“ ‘She has a husband, a father, and a brother?' 

“ ‘A brother.’ 

‘I do not address her brother?’ 

“He answered with great contempt, ‘No.’ 

“ ‘She has some recent association with the number twelve?’ 

“The younger brother impatiently rejoined, ‘With twelve 
o’clock?’ 

“ ‘See, gentlemen,’ said I, still keeping my hands upon her 
breast, ‘how useless I am, as you have brought me! If I 
; had known what I was coming to see, I could have come 
provided. As it is, time must be lost. There are no medi- 
I cines to be obtained in this lonely place.’ 

“The elder brother looked to the younger, who said haugh¬ 
tily, ‘There is a case of medicines here;’ and brought it from 
| a closet, and put it on the table. * * * * 

“I opened some of the bottles, smelt them, and put the 
stoppers to my lips. If I had wanted to use anything save 
narcotic medicines that were poisons in themselves, I would 
not have administered any of those. 

“ ‘Do you doubt them?’ asked the younger brother. 

“ ‘You see, monsieur, I am going to use them,’ I replied, 
and said no more. 

“I made the patient swallow, with great difficulty, and 
after many efforts, the dose that I desired to give. As I in¬ 
tended to repeat it after a while, and as it was necessary to 
watch its influence, I then sat down by the side of the bed. 
There was a timid and suppressed woman in attendance (wife 
of the man down-stairs), who had retreated into a corner. 
The house was damp and decayed, indifferently furnished— 
evidently, recently occupied and temporarily used. Some 
thick old hangings had been nailed up before the windows, 






446 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


to deaden the sound of the shrieks. They continued to be 
uttered in their regular succession, with the cry, ‘My husband, 
my father, and my brother!’ the counting up to twelve, and 
‘Hush!’ The frenzy was so violent, that I had not unfastened 
the bandages restraining the arms; but, I had looked to them, 
to see that they were not painful. The only spark of encour¬ 
agement in the case, was, that my hand upon the sufferer’s 
breast h^id this much soothing influence, that for minutes 
at a time it tranquillised th ‘ figure. It had no effect upon 
the cries; no pendulum could be more regular. 

“For the reason that my hand had this effect (I assume), 
I had sat by the side of the bed for half an hour, with the 
two brothers looking on, before the elder said: 

“ ‘There is another patient ’ 

“I was startled, and asked, ‘Is it a pressing case?’ 

“ ‘You had better see.’ he carelessly answered; and took 
up a light. * * * * 

“The other patient lay in a back room across a second stair¬ 
case, which was a species of loft over a stable. There was a 
low plastered ceiling to a part of it; the rest was open, to the 
ridge of the tiled roof, and there were beams across. Hay 
and straw were stored in that portion of the place, fagots for 
firing, and a heap of apples in sand I had to pass through 
that part, to get at the other. My memory is circumstantial 
and unshaken. I try it with these details, and I see them all, 
in this my cell in the Bastille, near the close of the tenth year 
of my captivity, as I saw them all that night. 

“On some hay on the ground, with a cushion thrown imder 
his head, lay a handsome peasant boy—a boy of not more 
than seventeen at the most. He lay on his back, with his 
teeth set, his right hand clenched on his breast, and his glar¬ 
ing eyes looking straight upward. I could not see where his 
wound was, as I kneeled down on one knee over him; but, 



THE SUBSTANCE OF THE SHADOW 


447 


I could see that he was dying of a wound from a sharp point. 

“‘lama doctor, my poor fellow,’ said I. ‘Let me examine 
it.’ 

“ ‘I do not want it examined,’ he answered; ‘let it be.’ 

“It was under his hand, and I soothed him to let me move 
his hand away. The wound was a sword-thrust, received 
from twenty to twenty-four hours before, but no skiil could 
have saved him if it had been looked to without delay. He 
was then dying fast. As I turned my eyes to the elder 
brother, I saw him looking down at this handsome boy 
| whose life was ebbing out, as if he were a wounded bird, or 
a hare, or rabbit; not at all as if he were a fellow-creature. 
“‘How has this been done, Monsieur?’ said I. 

“ ‘A crazed young common dog! A serf! Forced my 
brother to draw upon him, and has fallen by my brother’s 
sword—like a gentleman.’ 

“There was no touch of pity, sorrow, or kindred humanity, 
in this answer. The speaker seemed to acknowledge that it 
was inconvenient to have that different order of creature 
dying there, and that it would have been better if he had died 
in the usual obscure routine of his vermin kind. He was 
quite incapable of any compassionate feeling about the boy, 
or about his fate. 

“The boy’s eyes had slowly moved to him as he had spoken, 
and they now slowly moved to me. 

“ ‘Doctor, they are very proud, these Nolies; but we com¬ 
mon dogs are proud too, sometimes. They plunder us, out¬ 
rage us, beat us, kill us; but we have a little pride left, some¬ 
times. She—have you seen her, Doctor?’ 

“The shrieks and the cries were audible there, though 
subdued by the distance. He referred to them, as if she 
were lying in our presence. 

“I said, ‘I have seen her.’ 



448 A TALE OF TWO CITIES 

> “ ‘She is my sister, Doctor. They have had their shame¬ 
ful rights, these Nobles, in the modesty and virtue of our 
sisters, many years, but we have had good girls among us. 

I know it, and have heard my father say so. She was a good 
girl. She was betrothed to a good young man, too: a tenant 
of his. We were all tenants of his—that man’s who stands 
there. The other is his brother, the worst of a bad race. 4 

“It was with the greatest difficulty that the boy gathered 
bodily force to speak; but his spirit spoke with a dreadful 
emphasis. 

“ ‘We were so robbed by that man who stands there, as 
all we common dogs are by those superior Beings—taxed by 
him without mercy, obliged to work for him without pay, 
obliged to grind our corn at his mill, obliged to feed scores 
of his tame birds on our wretched crops, and forbidden for 
our lives to keep a single tame bird of our own, 1 pillaged and 
plundered to that degree that when we chanced to have a 
bit of meat, we ate it in fear, with the door barred 2 and the 
shutters closed, that his people should not see it and take it 
from us—I say we w^ere so robbed, and hunted and were 
made so poor, that our father told us it was a dreadful thing 
to bring a child into the world, and that what we should most 
pray for, was, that our women might be barren and our mis¬ 
erable race die out!’ 

“I had never before seen the sense of being oppressed, 
bursting forth like a fire. I had supposed that it must be 
latent in the people somewhere; but, I had never seen it 
break out, until I saw it in the dying boy. 

“ ‘Nevertheless, Doctor, my sister married. He was ailing 
at that time, poor fellow, and she married her lover, that she 
might tend and comfort him in our cottage—our dog-hut, as 

i See Taine, Ancient Regime, Book I, Chap, u, p. 25. 

* See for Dickens’s authority, Introduction p. 33. 



THE SUBSTANCE OF THE SHADOW 


449 


that man would call it. She had not been married many 
weeks, when that man’s brother saw her and admired her, 
and asked that man to lend her to him—for what are hus¬ 
bands among us! He was willing enough, but my sister was 
good and virtuous, and hated his brother with a hatred as 
• strong as mine. What did the two then, to persuade he 
husband to use his influence with her, to make her willing? 

“The boy’s eyes, which had been fixed on mine, slowl 
turned to the looker-on, and I saw in the two faces that al 
he said was true. The two opposing kinds of pride confront¬ 
ing one another, I can see, even in this Bastille; the gentle¬ 
man’s, all negligent indifference; the peasant’s, all trodden- 
down sentiment, and passionate revenge. 

“ ‘You know, Doctor, that it is among the Rights of these 
Nobles to harness us common dogs to carts, and drive us. 
They so harnessed him and drove him. You know that it 
is among their Rights to keep us in their grounds all night, 
quieting the frogs, in order that their noble sleep may not 
be disturbed. They kept him out in the unwholesome mists 
| at night, and ordered him back into his harness in the day. 1 
But he was not persuaded. No! Taken out of harness one 
day at noon, to feed—if he could find food—he sobbed twelve 
times, onee for every stroke of the bell, and died on her bosom.’ 

“Nothing human could have held life in the boy but his 
determination to tell all his wrongs. He forced back the 
gathering shadows of death, as he forced his clenched right 
hand to remain clenched, and^to cover his wound. 

“ ‘Then, with that man’s permission and even with his aid, 
his brother took her away; in spite of v/hat I know she must 
have told his brother—and what that is, will not be long un¬ 
known to you, Doctor, if it is now—his brother took her 
away—for his pleasure and diversion, for a little while. I 

i See Carlyle, History of the French Revolution, Part I, Book I, p. 7. 




450 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


saw her pass me on the road. When I took the tidings home, 
our father’s heart burst; he never spoke one of the words 
that filled it. I took my young sister (for I have another) 
to a place beyond the reach of this man, and where, at least, 
she will never be his vassal. Then, I tracked the brother 
here, and last night climbed in—a common dog, but sword 
in hand.—Where is the loft window? It was somewhere 
here?’ 

'The room was darkening to his sight; the world was 
narrowing around him. I glanced about me, and saw that 
the hay and straw were trampled over the floor, as if there 
had been a struggle. 

‘She heard me, and ran in. I told her not to come near 
us till he was dead. He came in and first tossed me some 
pieces of money; then struck at me with a whip. But I, 
though a common dog, so struck at him as to make him draw. 
Let him break into as many pieces as he will, the sword that 
he stained with my common blood; he drew to defend him¬ 
self—thrust at me with all his skill for his life.’ 

“My glance had fallen, but a few moments before, on the 
fragments of a broken sword, lying among the hay. That 
weapon was a gentleman’s. In another place, lay an old 
sword that seemed to have been a soldier’s. 

“ ‘Now, lift me up, Doctor; lift me up. Where is he?’ 

“ ‘He is not here,’ I said, supporting the boy, and thinking ' 
that he referred to the brother. 

“ ‘He! Proud as these nobles are, he is afraid to see me. 
Where is the man who was here? Turn my face to him.’ 

I did so, raising the boy’s head against my knee. But, 
invested for the moment with extraordinary power, he raised 
himself completely: obliging me to rise too, or I could not 
have still supported him. 

Marquis,’ said the boy, turned to him with his eyes 


THE SUBSTANCE OF THE SHADOW 


451 


opened wide, and his right hand raised, ‘in the days when all 
these things are to be answered for, I summon you and yours, 
to the last of your bad race, to answer for them. I mark 
this cross of blood upon you, as a sign that I do it. In the 
days when all these things are to be answered for, I summon 
your brother, the worst of the bad race, to answer for them 
separately. I mark this cross of blood upon him, as a sign 
that I do it.’ 

“Twice, he put his hand to the wound in his breast, and 
with his forefinger drew a cross in the air. He stood for an 
instant with the finger yet raised, and, as it dropped, he 
dropped with it, and I laid him down dead. ***** 

“When I returned to the bedside of the young woman, I 
found her raving in precisely the same order and continuity. 
I knew that this might last for many hours, and that it 
would probably end in the silence of the grave. 

“I repeated the medicines I had given her, and I sat at the 
side of the bed until the night was far advanced. She never 
abated the piercing quality of her shrieks, never stumbled 
in the distinctness or the order of her words. They were 
always ‘My husband, my father, and my brother! One, two, 
three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. 
Hush!’ 

“This lasted twenty-six hours from the time when I first 
saw her. I had come and gone twice, and was again sitting 
by her, when she began to falter. I did what little could be 
done to assist that opportunity, and by-and-by she sank into 
a lethargy, and lay like the dead. 

“It was as if the wind and rain had lulled at last, after a 
long and fearful storm. I released her arms, and called the 
woman to assist me to compose her figure and the dress she 
had torn. It w’as then that I knew her condition to be that 
of one in whom the first expectations of being a mother have 



452 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


arisen; and it was then that I lost the little hope I had -had of 
her. 

“‘Is she dead?’ asked the Marquis, whom I will still 
describe as the elder brother, coming booted into the room 
from his horse. 

“ ‘Not dead,’ said I; ‘but like to die/ 

“ ‘What strength there is in these common bodies!’ he 
said, looking down at her with some curiosity. 

“ ‘There is prodigious strength,’ I answered him, ‘in sorrow 
and despair.’ 

“He first laughed at my words, and then frowned at them. 
He moved a chair with his foot near to mine, ordered the 
woman away, and said in a subdued voice, 

“ ‘Doctor, finding my brother in this difficulty with these j 
hinds, I recommended that your aid should be invited. Your j 
reputation is high, and, as a young man with your fortune 
to make, you are probably mindful of your interest. The 
things that you see here, are things to be seen, and not spoken 
of.’ 

“I listened to the patient’s breathing, and avoided an¬ 
swering. 

“ ‘Do you honour me with your attention, Doctor?’ 

“ ‘Monsieur,’ said I, ‘in my profession, the communications 
of patients are always received in confidence.’ I was guarded 
in my answer, for I was troubled in my mind with what I had 
heard and seen. 

“Her breathing was so difficult to trace, that I carefully 
tried the pulse and the heart. There was life, and no more. 
Looking round as I resumed my seat. I found both the broth¬ 
ers intent upon me. * * * * 

“I write with so much difficulty, the cold is so severe, I 
am so fearful of being detected and consigned to an under¬ 
ground cell and total darkness, that I must abridge this 


THE SUBSTANCE OF THE SHADOW 


453 


narrative. There is no confusion or failure in my memory; 
it can recall, and could detail, every word that was ever 
spoken between me and those brothers. 

“She lingered for a week. Towards the last, I could under¬ 
stand some few syllables that she said to me, by placing 
my ear close to her lips. She asked me where she was, and 
I told her; who I was, and I told her. It was in vain that 
I asked her for her family name. She faintly shook her head 
upon the pillow, and kept her secret, as the boy had done. 

“I had no opportunity of asking her any question, until I 
had told the brothers she was sinking fast, and could not live 
another day. Until then, though no one was ever presented 
to her consciousness save the woman and myself, one or other 
of them had always jealously sat behind the curtain at the 
head of the bed when I was there. But when it came to 
that, they seemed careless what communication I might hold 
with her; as if—the thought passed through my mind—I 
were dying too. 

“I always observed that their pride bitterly resented the 
younger brother’s (as I call him) having crossed swords with 
a peasant, and that peasant a boy. The only consideration 
that appeared to affect the mind of either of them was the 
consideration that this was highly degrading to the family, 
and was ridiculous. As often as I caught the younger 
brother’s eyes, their expression reminded me that he disliked 
me deeply, for knowing what I knew from the boy. He was 
smoother and more polite to me than the elder; but I saw 
this. I also saw that I was an incumbrance in the mind of 
the elder, too. 

“My patient died, two hours before midnight—at a time, 
by my watch, answering almost to the minute when I had 
first seen her. I was alone with her, when her forlorn young 



454 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


head drooped gently on one side, and all her earthly wrongs 
and sorrows ended. 

“The brothers were waiting in a room down-stairs, impa¬ 
tient to ride away. I had heard them, alone at the bedside, 
striking their boots with their riding-whips, and loitering up 
and down. 

“ 'At last she is dead?* said the elder, when I went in. 

“ 'She is dead/ said I. 

" ‘I congratulate you, my brother/ were his words as he 
turned round. 

“He had before offered me money, which I had postponed 
taking. He now gave me a rouleau of gold. I took it from 
his hand, but laid it on the table. I had considered the 
question, and had resolved to accept nothing. 

“ ‘Pray excuse me/ said I. 'Under the circumstances, no.’ 

“They exchanged looks, but bent their heads to me as I 
bent mine to them, and we parted without another word on 
either side. * * * * 

“I am weary, weary, weary—worn down by misery. 1 
cannot read what I have written with this gaunt hand. 

“Early in the morning, the rouleau of gold was left at my* 
door in a little box, with my name on the outside. From the 
first, I had anxiously considered what I ought to do. I de¬ 
cided, that day, to write privately to the Minister, stating the 
nature of the two cases to which I had been summoned, and 
the place to which I had gone: in effect, stating all the cir¬ 
cumstances. I knew what Court influence was, and what 
the immunities of the Nobles were, and I expected that the 
matter would never be heard of; but, I wished to relieve my 
own mind. I had kept the matter a profound secret, even 
from my wife; and this, too, I resolved to state in my letter. 

I had no apprehension whatever of my real danger; but I was 
conscious that there might be danger for others, if others were 





THE SUBSTANCE OF TH£ SHADOW 


455 


compromised by possessing the knowledge that I possessed. 

“I was much engaged that day, and could not complete 
my letter that night. I rose long before my usual time next 
morning to finish it. It was the last day of the year. The 
letter was lying before me just completed, when I was told 
that a lady waited, who wished to see me. * * * * 

“I am growing more and more unequal to the task I have 
set myself. It is so cold, so, dark, my senses are so benumbed, 
and the gloom upon me is so dreadful. 

“The lady was young, engaging, and handsome, but not 
marked for long life. She was in gieat agitation. She pre¬ 
sented herself to me as the wife of the Marquis St. Evr6- 
monde. I connected the title by which the boy had addressed 
the elder brother, with the initial letter embroidered on the 
scarf, and had no difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that 
I Had seen that nobleman very lately. 

“My memory is still accurate, but I cannot write the words 
of our conversation. I suspect that I am watched more 
closely than I was, and I know not at what times I may be 
watched. She had in part suspected, and in part discovered, 
the main facts of the cruel story of her husband’s share in 
it, and my being resorted to. She did not know that the girl 
; was dead. Hei hope had been, she said in great distress, 
to show her, in secret, a woman’s sympathy. Her hope had 
been to avert the wrath of Heaven from a House that had 
long been hateful to the suffering many. 

“She had reasons for believing that there was a young 
sister living, and her greatest desire was, to help that sister. 

I could tell her nothing but that there was such a sister; 
beyond that, I knew nothing. Her inducement to come to 
me, relying on my confidence, had been the hope that I could 
tell her the name and place of abode. Whereas, to this 
wretched hour I am ignorant of both. * * * * 




45b 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“These scraps of paper fail me. One was taken from m^ : 
with a warning, yesterday. I must finish my record to-day. 

“She was a good, compassionate lady, and not happy in 
her marriage. How could she be! The brother distrusted 
and disliked her, and his influence was all opposed to her; 
she stood in dread of him, and in dread of her husband too. 
When I handed her down to the door, there was a child, a 
pretty boy from two to three years old, in her carriage. 

“ ‘For his sake, Doctor/ she said, pointing to him in tears, 

T would do all I can to make what poor amends I can. He 
will never prosper in his inheritance otherwise. I have a 
presentiment that if no other innocent atonement is made 
for this, it will one day be required of him. What I have 
left to call my own—it is little beyond the worth of a few 
jewels—I will make it the first charge of his life to bestow, : 
with the compassion and lamenting of his dead mother, on 
this injured family, if the sister can be discovered.’ 

“She kissed the boy, and said, caressing him, ‘It is for 
thine own dear sake. Thou wilt be faithful, little Charles?’ 
The child answered her bravely, ‘Yes!’ I kissed her hand, 
and she took him in her arms, and went away caressing him. 

1 never saw her more. 

“As she had mentioned her husband’s name in the faith 
that I knew it, I added no mention of it to my letter. I 
sealed my letter, and, not trusting it out of my own hands, 
delivered it myself that day. 

“That night, the last night of the year, towards nine 
o’clock, a man in a black dress rang at my gate, demanded to 
see me, and softly followed my servant, Ernest Defarge, a 
youth, up-stairs. When my servant came into the room 
where I sat with my wife—O my wife, beloved of my heart! 
My fair young English wife!—we saw the man, who was 
supposed to be at the gate, standing silent behind him. 


THE SUBSTANCE OF THE SHADOW 


457 


“An urgent case in the Rue St. Honore, he said. It would 
not detain me, he had a coach in waiting. 

“It brought me here, it brought me to my grave. When 
. 1 was clear of the house, a black muffler was drawn tightly 
over my mouth from behind, and my arms were pinioned 
The two brothers crossed the road from a dark corner, and 
identified me with a single gesture. The Marquis took from 
his pocket the letter I had written, showed it me, burnt it in 
the light of a lantern that was held, and extinguished the 
ashes with his foot. Not a word was spoken. I was brought 
here, I was brought to my living grave. 

“If it had pleased God to put it in the hard heart of either 
of the brothers, in all these frightful years, to grant me any 
tidings of my dearest wife—so much as to let me know by a 
word whether alive or dead—I might have thought that He 
had not quite abandoned them. But, now I believe that the 
mark of the red cross is fatal to them, and that they have no 
part in His mercies. And them and their descendants, to the 
last of their race, I, Alexandre Manette, unhappy prisoner, 
do this last night of the year 1767, in my unbearable agony, 
denounce to the times when all these things shall be answered 
for. I denounce them to Heaven and to earth.” 

A terrible sound arose when the reading of this document 
was done. A sound of craving and eagerness that had noth¬ 
ing articulate in it but blood. The narrative called up the 
most revengeful passions of the time, and there was not a 
head in the nation but must have dropped before it. 

Little need, in presence of that tribunal and that auditory, 
to show how the Defarges had not made the paper public, 
with the other captured Bastille memorials borne in proces¬ 
sion, and had kept it, biding their time. Little need to .show 
that this detested family name had long been anathematised 




458 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


by Saint Antoine, and was wrought into the fatal register. 
The man never trod ground whose virtues and services 
would have sustained him in that place that day, against 
such denunciation. 

And all the worse for the doomed man, that the denouncer 
was a well-known citizen, his own attached friend, the father 
bf his wife. One of the frenzied aspirations of the populace 
was, for imitations of the questionable public virtues of anti¬ 
quity, and for sacrifices and self-immolations on the people’s 
altar. Therefore when the President said (else had his own 
head quivered on his shoulders), that the good physician of 
the Republic would deserve better still of the Republic by 
rooting out an obnoxious family of Aristocrats, and would 
doubtless feel a sacred glow and joy in making his daughter 
a widow and her child an orphan, there was wild excitement, 
patriotic fervour, not a touch of human sympathy. 

“Much influence around him, has that Doctor?” murmured 
Madame Defarge, smiling to The Vengeance. “Save him * 
now, my Doctor, save him!” 

At every juryman’s vote, there was a roar. Another and 
another. Roar and roar. 

Unanimously voted. At heart and by descent an Aristo¬ 
crat, an enemy of the Republic, a notorious oppressor of the 
People. Back to the Conciergerie, and Death within four- 
and-twenty hours! 



CHAPTER XI. 


DUSK 

The wretched wife of the innocent man thus doomed to die, 
fell under the sentence, as if she had been mortally stricken. 
But she uttered no sound; and so strong was the voice within 
her, representing that it was she of all the world who must 
uphold him in his misery and not augment it, that it quickly 
raised her, even from that shock. 

The judges having to take part in a public demonstration 
out of doors, the tribunal adjourned. The quick noise and 
movement of the court’s emptying itself by many passages 
had not ceased, when Lucie stood stretching out her arms 
towards her husband, with nothing in her face but love and 
consolation. 

“If I might touch him! If I might embrace him once! O, 
good citizens, if you would have so much compassion for us!” 

There was but a gaoler left, along with two of the four 
men who had taken him last night, and Barsad. The people 
had all poured out to the show in the streets. Barsad pro¬ 
posed to the rest, “Let her embrace him then; it is but a 
moment.” It was silently acquiesced in, and they passed 
her over the seats in the hall to a raised place, where he, by 
leaning over the dock, could fold her in his arms. 

“Farewell, dear darling of my soul. My parting blessing 
on my love. We shall meet again, where the weary are at 
rest!” 

They were her husband’s words, as he held her to his bosom. 

“I can bear it, dear Charles. I am supported from above: 
don’t suffer for me. A parting blessing for our child.” 

459 




460 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“I send it to her by you. I kiss her by you. I say fare¬ 
well to her by you ” 

“My husband. No! A moment!” He was tearing him¬ 
self apart from her. '‘We shall not be separated long. I 
feel that this will break my heart by-and-by; but I will do 
my duty while I can, and when I leave her, God will raise 
up friends for her, as He did for me.” 

Her father had followed her, and would have fallen on his 
knees to both of them, but that Darnay put out a hand and 
seized him, crying: 

“No, no! What have you done, what have you done, that 
you should kneel to us! We know now, what a struggle you 
made of old. We know now, what you underwent when you 
suspected my descent, and when you knew it. We know now 
the natural antipathy you strove against, and conquered, for 
her dear sake. We thank you with all our hearts, and all 
our love and duty. Heaven be with you!” 

Her father’s only answer was to draw his hands through i 
his white hair, and wring them with a shriek of anguish. | 

“It could not be otherwise,” said the prisoner. “All things 
have worked together as they have fallen out. It was the 
always-vain endeavour to discharge my poor mother’s trust 
that first brought my fatal presence hear you. Good could 
never come of such evil, a happier end was not in nature to 
so unhappy a beginning. Be comforted, and forgive me. 
Heaven bless you!” 

As he was drawn away, his wife released him, and stood 
looking after him with her hands touching one another in the 
attitude of prayer, and with a radiant look upon her face, in 
which there was even a comforting smile. As he went out 
at the prisoners’ door, she turned, laid her head lovingly on 
her father’s breast, tried to speak to him, and fell at his 
feet. 



DUSK 


461 


Then, issuing from the obscure corner from which he had 
never moved, Sydney Carton came and took her up. Only 
her father and Mr. Lorry were with her. His arm trembled 
as it raised her, and supported her head. Yet, there was an 
air about him that was not all of pity—that had a flush of 
pride in it. f 

“Shall I take her to a coach? I shall never feel her 
weight.” 

He carried her lightly to the door, and laid her tenderly 
down in a coach. Her father and their old friend got into 
it, and he took his seat beside the driver. 

When they arrived at the gateway where he had paused in 
the dark not many hours before, to picture to himself on 
which of the rough stones of the street her feet had trodden, 
he lifted her again, and carried her up the staircase to their 
rooms. There, he laid her down on a couch, where her child 
and Miss Pross w T ept over her. 

“Don’t recall her to herself,” he said, softly, to the latter, 
“she is better so. Don’t revive her to consciousness, while 
she only faints.” 

“Oh, Carton, Carton, dear Carton!” cried little Lucie, 
springing up and throwing her arms passionately round him, 
in a burst of grief. “Now that you have come, I think you 
will do something to help mamma, something to save papa! 
O, look at her, dear Carton! Can you, of all the people who 
love her, bear to see her so?” 

He bent over the child, and laid her blooming cheek against 
his face. He put her gently from him, and looked at her 
unconscious mother. 

“Before I go,” he said, and paused—“I may kiss her?” 

It was remembered afterwards that when he bent down and 
touched her face with his lips, he murmured some words. 
The child, who was nearest to him, told them afterwards, and 






462 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


told her grandchildren when she was a handsome old lady, 
that she heard him say, “A life you love.” 

When he had gone out into the next room, he turned 
suddenly on Mr. Lorry and her father, who were following, 
and said to the latter: 

“You had great influence but yesterday, Doctor Manette; 
let it at least be tried. These judges, and all the men in 
power, are very friendly to you, and very recognisant of your 
services; are they not?” 

“Nothing connected with Charles was concealed from me. 
I had the strongest assurances that I should save him; and 
I did.” He returned the answer in great trouble, and very 
slowly. 

“Try them again. The hours between this and to-morrow 
afternoon are few and short, but try.” 

“I intend to try. I will not rest a moment.” 

“That’s well. I have known such energy as yours do 
great things before now—though never,” he added, w T ith a 
smile and a sigh together, “such great things as this. But 
try! Of little worth as life is when we misuse it, it is 
worth that effort. It would cost nothing to lay down if it 
were not.” 

“I will go,” said Doctor Manette, “to the Prosecutor and 
the President straight, and I will go to others whom it is 

better not to name. I will write too, and- But stay! 

There is a celebration in the streets, and no one will be ac¬ 
cessible until dark.” 

“That’s true. Well! It is a forlorn hope at the best, and 
not much the forlorner for being delayed till dark. I should 
like to know how you speed; though, mind! I expect noth¬ 
ing! When are you likely to have seen these dread powers, 
Doctor Manette?” 


DUSK 


463 


“Immediately after dark, I should hope. Within an hour 
or two from this.” 

“It will be dark soon after four. Let us stretchy the hour 
or two. If I go to Mr. Lorry’s at nine, shall I hear what you 

have done, either from our friend or from yourself?” 

’ _ >> 

xes. 

“May you prosper!” 

Mr. Lorry followed Sydney to the outer door, and, touch¬ 
ing him on the shoulder as he was going away, caused him to 
turn. 

“I have no hope,”said Mr. Lorry, in a low and sorrowful 
whisper. 

“Nor have I.” 

“If any one of these men, or all of these men, were disposed 
to spare him—which is a large supposition; for what is his 
life, or any man’s to them!—I doubt if they durst spare him 
after the demonstration in the court.” 

“And so do I. I heard the fall of the axe in that sound.” 
Mr. Lorry leaned his arm upon the door-post, and bowed 
hi^ face upon it. 

“Don’t despond,” said Carton, very gently; “don’t grieve. 
I encouraged Doctor Manette in this idea, because I felt that 
it might one day be consolatory to her. Otherwise, she 
might think ‘his life was wantonly thrown away or wasted,’ 
and that might trouble her.” 

“Yes, yes, yes,” returned Mr. Lorry, drying his eyes, “you 
are right. But he will perish; there is no real hope.” 

“Yes. He will perish: there is no real hope,” echoed Carton. 
And walked with a settled step, down-stairs. 



CHAPTER XII. 


DARKNESS 

Sydney Carton paused in the street, not quits decided 
where to go. “At Tellson’s banking-house at nine,” he said, 
with a musing face. “Shall I do well, in the meantime, to 
show myself? I think so. It is best that these people should 
know there is such a man as I here; it is a sound precaution, 
and may be a necessary preparation. But care, care, care! 
Let me think it out!” 

Checking his steps which had begun to tend towards an 
object, he took a turn or two in the already darkening street, 
and traced the thought in his mind to its possible conse¬ 
quences. His first impression was confirmed. “It is best,” 
he said, finally resolved, “that these people should know 
there is such a man as I here.” And he turned his face 
towards Saint Antoine. 

Defarge h^'d described himself, that day, as the keeper of a 
wine-shop in the Saint Antoine suburb. It was not difficult for 
one who knew the city well, to find his house without asking 
any question. Having ascertained its situation, Carton came 
out of those closer streets again, and dined at a place of re¬ 
freshment and fell sound asleep after dinner. For the first 
time in many years, he had no strong drink. Since last night 
he had taken nothing but a little light thin wine, and last 
night he had dropped the brandy slowly down on Mr. 
Lorry’s hearth like a man who had done with it. 

It was as late as seven o’clock when he awoke refreshed, and 
went out into the streets again. As he passed along towards 
Saint Antoine, he stopped at a shop-window where there was 

464 


DARKNESS 


465 


a mirror, and slightly altered the disordered arrangement of 
his loose cravat, and his coat-collar, and his wild hair. This 
done, he went on direct to Defarge’s, and went in. 

There happened to be no customer in the shop but Jacques 
Three, of the restless fingers and the croaking voice. This 
man, whom he had seen upon the Jury, stood drinking at the 
little counter, in conversation with the Defarges, man and 
wife. The Vengeance assisted in the conversation, like a 
regular member of the establishment. 

As Carton walked in, took his seat and asked (in very 
indifferent French) for a small measure of wine, Madame 
Defarge cast a careless glance at him, and then a keener, and 
then a keener, and then advanced to him herself, and asked 
him what it was he had ordered. 

He repeated what he had already said. 

“English?” asked Madame Defarge, inquisitively raising 
her dark eyebrows. 

After looking at her, as if the sound of even a single French 
word were slow to express itself to him, he answered, in his 
former strong foreign accent, “Yes, madame, yes. I am 
English!” 

Madame Defarge returned to her counter to get the wine, 
and, as he took up a Jacobin journal and feigned to pore over 
it puzzling out its meaning, he heard her say, “I swear to you, 
like Evremonde!” 

Defarge brought him the wine, and gave him Good 
Evening. 

“How?” 

“Good evening.” 

“Oh! Good evening, citizen,” filling his glass. “Ah! and 
good wine. I drink to the Republic.” 

Defarge went back to the counter, and said, “Certainly, 
a little like.” Madame sternly retorted, “I tell you a good 




466 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


deal like.” Jacques Three pacifically remarked, “He is so 
much in your mind, see you, madame.” The amiable Ven¬ 
geance added, with a laugh, “Yes, my faith I And you are 
looking forward with so much pleasure to seeing him once 
more to-morrow!” 

Carton followed the lines and words of his paper, with a 
slow forefinger, and with a studious and absorbed face. They 
were all leaning their arms on the counter close together, 
speaking low. After a silence of a few moments, during which 
they all looked towards him without disturbing his outward 
attention from the Jacobin editor, they resumed their con¬ 
versation. 

“It is true what madame says,” observed Jacques Three. 
“Why stop? There is great force in that. Why stop?” 

“Well, well,” reasoned Defarge, “but.one must stop some¬ 
where. After all, the question is still where?” 

“At extermination,” said madame. 

Magnificent! croaked Jacques Three. The Vengeance, 
also, highly approved. 

“Extermination is good doctrine, my wife,” said Defarge, 
rather troubled; “in general, I say nothing against it. But 
this Doctor has suffered much; you have seen him to-day; 
you have observed his face when the paper was read.” 

“I have observed his face!” repeated madame, contemptu¬ 
ously and angrily. “Yes. I have observed his face. I have 
observed his face to be not the face of a true friend of the 
Republic. Let him take care of his face!” 

“And you have observed, my wife,” said Defarge, in a 
deprecatory manner, “the anguish of his daughter, which 
must be a dreadful anguish to him!” 

“I have observed his daughter,” repeated madame; “yes, 

I have observed his daughter, more times than one. I have 
observed her to-day, and I have observed her other days. I 


DARKNESS 


467 


have observed her in the court, and I have observed her in 

the street by the prison. Let me but lift my finger-!” 

She seemed to raise it (the listener’s eyes were always on his 
paper), and to let it fall with a rattle on the ledge before her, 
as if the axe had dropped. 

“The citizeness is superb!’’ croaked the Juryman. 

“She is an Angel!” said The Vengeance, and embraced her. 

“As to thee,” pursued madame, implacably, addressing 
her husband, “if it depended on thee—which, happily, it does 
not—thou wouldst rescue this man even now.” 

“No!” protested Defarge. “Not if to lift this glass would 
do it! But I would leave the matter there. I say, stop 
there.” 

“See you then, Jacques,” said Madame Defarge, wrath- 
fully; “and see you, too, my little Vengeance; see you both ? 
Listen! For other crimes as tyrants and oppressors, I have 
this race a long time on my register, doomed to destruction 
and extermination. Ask my husband, is that so.” 

“It is so,” assented Defarge, without being asked. 

“In the beginning of the great days, when the Bastille 
falls, he finds this paper of to-day, and he brings it home, and 
in the middle of the night when this place is clear and shut, 
we read it, here on this spot, by the light of this lamp. Ask 
him, is that so.” 

“It is so,” assented Defarge. 

“That night, I tell him, when the paper is read through, and 
the lamp is burnt out, and the day is gleaming in above those 
shutters and between those iron bars, that I have now a 
secret to communicate. Ask him, is that so.” 

“It is so,” assented Defarge again. 

“I communicate to him that secret. I smite this bosom 
with these two hands as I smite it now, and I tell him, 
‘Defarge, I was brought up among the fishermen of the 




468 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


sea-shore, and that peasant family so injured by the two 
Evremonde brothers, as that Bastille paper describes, is my 
family. Defarge, that sister of the mortally wounded boy 
upon the ground was my sister, that husband was my sister’s 
husband, that unborn child was their child, that brother was 
my brother, that father was my father, those dead are my 
dead, and that summons to answer for those things descends 
tome!’ Ask him, is that so.” 

“It is so,” assented Defarge once more. 

“Then tell Wind and Fire where to stop,” returned madame; 
“but don’t tell me.” 

Both her hearers derived a horrible enjoyment from the 
deadly nature of her wrath—the listener could feel how white 
she was, without seeing her—and both highly commended it. 
Defarge, a weak minority, interposed a few words for the 
memory of the compassionate wife of the Marquis; but only 
elicited from his own wife a repetition of her last reply. 
‘Tell the Wind and the Fire where to stop; not me!” 

Customers entered, and the group was broken up. The 
English customer paid for what he had had, perplexedly 
counted his change, and asked, as a stranger, to be directed 
towards the National Palace. Madame Defarge took him to 
the door, and put her arm on his, in pointing out the road. 
The English customer was not without reflections then, that 
it might be a good deed to seize that arm, lift it, and strike 
under it sharp and deep. 

But, he went his w T ay, and was soon swallowed up in the 
shadow of the prison wall. At the appointed hour, he emerged 
from it to present himself in Mr. Lorry’s room again, wdiere 
he found the old gentleman walking to and fro in restless 
anxiety. He said he had been with Lucie until just now, and 
had only left her for a few minutes, to come and keep his 
appointment. Her father had not been seen, since he quitted 


DARKNESS 


469 


the banking-house towards four o’clock. She had some 
faint hopes that his mediation might save Charles, but they 
were very slight. He had been more than five hours gone: 
where could he be? 

Mr. Lorry waited until ten; but, Doctor Manette not re¬ 
turning, and he being unwilling to leave Lucie any longer, 
it was arranged that he should go back to her, and come to 
the banking-house again at midnight. In the meanwhile, 
Carton would wait alone by the fire for the Doctor. 

He waited and waited, and the clock struck twelve; but 
Doctor Manette did not come back. Mr. Lorry returned, 
and found no tidings of him, and brought none. Where 
could he be? 

They were discussing this question, and were almost build¬ 
ing up some weak structure of hope on his prolonged absence, 
when they heard him on the stairs. The instant he entered 
the room, it was plain that all was lost. 

Whether he had really been to any one, or whether he had 
been all that time traversing the streets, was never known. 
As he stood staring at them, they asked him no question, for 
his face told them everything. 

“I cannot find it,” said he, "and I must have it. Where 
is it?” 

His head and throat were bare, and, as he spoke with a 
helpless look straying all around, he took his coat off, and let 
it drop on the floor. 

"Where is my bench? I have been looking everywhere 
for my bench, and I can’t find it. What have they done 
with my work? Time presses: I must finish those shoes.” 

They looked at one another, and their hearts died within 
them. 

"Come, come!” said he, in a whimpering miserable way: 
"let me get to work. Give me my work.” 



470 


,A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Receiving no answer, he tore his hair, and beat his feet 
upon the ground, like a distracted child. 

“Don’t torture a poor forlorn wretch,” he implored them^ 
with a dreadful cry; “but give me my work! What is to 
become of us, if those shoes are not done to-night?” 

Lost, utterly lost! 

It was so clearly beyond hope to reason with him, or try to 
restore him,—that—as if by agreement—they each put a 
hand upon his shoulder, and soothed him to sit down before 
the fire, with a promise that he should have his work pres¬ 
ently. He sank into the chair, and brooded over the embers, 
and shed tears. As if all that had happened since the garret 
time were a momentary fancy, or a dream, Mr. Lorry saw 
him shrink into the exact figure that Defarge had had in 
keeping. 

Affected, and impressed with terror as they both were, by 
this spectacle of ruin, it was not a time to yield to such emo¬ 
tions. His lonely daughter, bereft of her final hope and 
reliance, appealed to them both too strongly. Again, as if 
by agreement, they looked at one another with one meaning 
in their faces. Carton was the first to speak: 

“The last chance is gone: it was not much. Yes; he had 
better be taken to her. But, before you go, will you, for a 
moment, steadily attend to me? Don’t ask me why I make 
the stipulations I am going to make, and exact the promise 
I am going to exact; I have a reason—a good one.” 

“I do not doubt it,” answered Mr. Lorry. “Say on.” 

The figure in the cha : • between them, was all the time 
monotonously rocking i ,jelf to and fro, and moaning. They 
spoke in such a tone as they would have used if they had been 
watching by a sick-bed in the night. 

Carton stooped to pick up the coat, which lay almost 
entangling his feet. As he did so, a small case in which the 


DARKNESS 


471 


Doctor was accustomed to carry the list of his day’s duties 
j fell lightly on the floor. Carton took it up, and there was a 
| folded paper in it. “We should look at this!” he said. Mr. 
Lorry nodded his consent. He opened it, and exclaimed, 
“Thank God!” 

“What is it?” asked Mr. Lorry, eagerly. 

“A moment! Let me speak of it in its place. First,” he 
put his hand in his coat, and took another paper from it, 
“that is the certificate which enables me to pass out of this 
city. Look at it. You see—Sydney Carton, an English¬ 
man?” 

Mr. Lorry held it open in his hand, gazing in his earnest 
face. 

“Keep it for me until to-morrow. I shall see him to* 
morrow, you remember, and I had better not take it into the 
prison.” 

“Why not?” 

“I don’t know; I prefer not to do so. Now, take this paper 
that Doctor Manette has carried about him. It is a similar 
certificate, enabling him and his daughter and her child, 
at any time, to pass the barrier and the frontier? You see?” 

“Yes!” 

“Perhaps he obtained it as his last and utmost precaution 
against evil, yesterday. When is it dated? But no matter; 
don’t stay to look; put it up carefully with mine and your 
own. Now, observe! I never doubted until within this 
hour or two, that he had, or could have, such a paper. It is 
good, until recalled. But it may be soon recalled, and, I have 
reason to think, will be.” 

“They are not in danger?” 

“They are in great danger. They are in danger of de¬ 
nunciation by Madame Defarge. I know it froiu her own 
lips. I have overheard words of that woman’s to-night, 



472 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


which have presented their danger to me in strong colours . 1 
I have lost no time, and since then, I have seen the spy. He 
confirms me. He knows that a wood-sawyer, living by the 
prison wall, is under the control of the Defarges, and has 
been rehearsed by Madame Defarge as to his having seen 
Her”—he never mentioned Lucie’s name—“making signs 
and signals to prisoners. It is easy to foresee that the pre¬ 
tence will be the common one, a prison plot, and that it will 
involve her life—and perhaps her child’s—and perhaps her 
father’s—for both have been seen with her at that place. 
Don’t look so horrified. You will save them all.” 

“Heaven grant I may, Carton! But how?” 

“I am going to tell you how. It will depend on you, 
and it could depend on no better man. This new denuncia¬ 
tion will certainly not take place until after to-morrow; prob¬ 
ably not until two or three days afterwards; more probably 
a week afterwards. You know it is a capital crime, to mourn 
for, or sympathise with, a victim of the Guillotine. She 
and her father would unquestionably be guilty of this crime, j 
and this woman (the inveteracy of whose pursuit cannot 
be described) would wait to add that strength to her case, 
and make herself doubly sure. You follow me?” 

“So attentively, and with so much confidence in what you 
say, that for the moment I lose sight,” touching the back 
of the Doctor’s chair, “even of this distress.” 

“You have money, and can buy the means of travelling to 
the sea-coast as quickly as the journey can be made. Your 
preparations have been completed for some days, to return to 
England. Early to-morrow have your horses ready, so that 
they may be in starting trim at two o’clock in the afternoon.” 

“It shall be done!” 

His manner was so fervent and inspiring, that Mr. Lorry 
caught the flame, and was as quick as youth. 



DARKNESS 


473 


“Y ou are a noble heart. Did I say we could depend upon 
no better man? Tell her, to-night, what you know of her 
danger as involving her child and her father. Dwell upon 
that, for she would lay her own fair head beside her husband’s 
cheerfully.’ He faltered for an instant; then went on as 
before. ‘For the sake of her child and her father, press upon 
her the necessity of leaving Paris, with them and you, at that 
hour. Tell her that it was her husband’s last arrangement. 
Tell her that more depends upon it than she dare believe, 
or hope. You think that her father, even in this sad state, 
will submit himself to her; do you not?” 

“I am sure of it.” 

“I thought so. Quietly and steadily have all these arrange¬ 
ments made in the court-yard here, even to the taking of your 
own seat in the carriage. The moment I come to you, take 
me in, and drive away.” 

“I understand that I wait for you under all circumstances?” 
“You have my certificate in your hand with the rest, you 
know, and will reserve my place. Wait for nothing but to 
have my place occupied, and then for England!” 

“Why, then,” said Mr. Lorry, grasping his eager but so 
firm and steady hand, “it does not all depend on one old man, 
but I shall have a young and ardent man at my side.” 

“By the help of Heaven you shall! Promise me solemnly 
that nothing will influence you to alter the course on which 
we now stand pledged to one another.” 

“Nothing, Carton.” 

“Remember these words to-morrow: change the course, or 
delay in it—for any reason—and no life can possibly be saved, 
and many lives must inevitably be sacrificed.” 

“I will remember them. I hope to do my part faithfully.” 
“And I hope to do mine. Now, good-bye!” 

Though he said it with a grave smile of earnestness, and 




474 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


though he even put the old man’s hand to his lips, he did 
not part from him then. He helped him so far to arouse the 
rocking figure before the dying embers, as to get a cloak 
and hat put upon it, and to tempt it forth to find where the 
bench and work were hidden that it still moaningly besought 
to have. He walked on the other side of it and protected it 
to the court-yard of the house where the afflicted heart— 
so happy in the memorable time when he had revealed his 
own desolate heart to it—outwatched the awful night. He 
entered the court-yard and remained there for a few moments 
alone, looking up at the light in the window of her room. 
Before he went away, he breathed a blessing towards it, and 
a Farewell. 


)• 




CHAPTER XIII. 


x FIFTY-TWO 

In the black prison of the Conciergerie , 1 the doomed of the 
day awaited their fate. They were in number as the weeks 
of the year. Fifty-two were to roll that afternoon on the 
life-tide of the city to the boundless everlasting sea. Before 
their cells were quit of them, new occupants were appointed; 
before their blood ran into the blood spilled yesterday, the 
blood that was to mingle with theirs to-morrow was already 
set apart. 

Two score and twelve were told off. From the farmer- 
general of seventy, whose riches could not buy his life, to the 
seamstress of twenty, whose poverty and obscurity could not 
save her. Physical diseases, engendered in the vices and 
neglects of men, will seize on victims of all degrees; and the 
frightful moral disorder, born of unspeakable suffering, in¬ 
tolerable oppression, and heartless indifference, smote equally 
without distinction. 

Charles Darnay, alone in a cell, had sustained himself with 
no flattering delusion since he came to it from the Tribunal. 
In every line of the narrative he had heard, he had heard his 
condemnation. He had fully comprehended that no per¬ 
sonal influence could possibly save him, that he was virtually 
sentenced by the millions, and that units could avail him 
nothing. 

Nevertheless, it was not easy, with the face of his beloved 

1 The adjective is appropriately used. It is beneath the Palais de Jus¬ 
tice. Here were confined most of the political prisoners of the Revolution. 
The cells of Marie Antoinette and Robespierre adjoin each other and may 
be seen by permission from the Prefecture de Police. 

475 



476 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


wife fresh before him, to compose his mind to what it must 
bear. His hold on life was strong, and it was very, very hard, 
to loosen; by gradual efforts and degrees unclosed a little 
here, it clenched the tighter there; and when he brought his 
strength to bear on that hand and it yielded, this was closed 
again. There was a hurry, too, in all his thoughts, a tur- 
oulent and heated working of his heart, that contended 
against resignation. If, for a moment, he did feel resigned, 
then his wife and child who had to live after him, seemed to 
protest and to make it a selfish thing. 

But, all this was at first. Before long, the consideration 
that there was no disgrace in the fate he must meet, and that 
numbers went the same road wrongfully, and trod it firmly 
every day, sprang up to stimulate him. Next followed the 
thought that much of the future peace of mind enjoyable by 
the dear ones, depended on his quiet fortitude. So, by 
degrees he calmed into the better state, when he could raise 
his thoughts much higher, and draw comfort down. 

Before it had set in dark on the night of his condemnation, 
he had travelled thus far on his last way. Being allowed to 
purchase the means of writing, and a light, he sat down to 
write until such time as the prison lamps should be extin¬ 
guished. 

He wrote a long letter to Lucie, showing her that he had 
known nothing of her father’s imprisonment, until he had 
heard of it from herself, and that he had been as ignorant as 
she of his father’s and uncle’s responsibility for that misery, 
until the paper had been read. He had already explained to 
her that his concealment from herself of the name he had re¬ 
linquished, was the one condition—fully intelligible now—that 
her father had attached to their betrothal, and was the one 
promise he had still exacted on the morning of the : r marriage. 
He entreated her, for her father’s sake, never to seek to know 


FIFTY-TWO 


477 


whether her father had become oblivious of the existence of 
the paper, or had had it recalled to him (for the moment, or 
for good), by the story of the Tower, on that old Sunday 
under the dear old plane-tree in the garden. If he had pre¬ 
served any definite remembrance of it, there could be no 
doubt that he had supposed it destroyed with the Bastille, 
when he had found no mention of it among the relics of 
prisoners which the populace had discovered there, and which 
had been described to all the world. He besought her— 
though he added that he knew it was needless—to console her 
father, by impressing him through every tender means she 
could think of, with the truth that he had done nothing for 
which he could justly reproach himself, but had uniformly 
forgotten himself for their joint sakes. Next to her preser¬ 
vation ‘of his own last grateful love and blessing, and her 
overcoming of her sorrow, to devote herself to their dear 
child, he adjured her, as they would meet in Heaven, to 
comfort her father. 

To her father himself, he wrote in the same strain; but, he 
told her father that he expressly confided his wife and child 
to his care. And he told him this, very strongly, with the 
hope of rousing him from any despondency or dangerous 
retrospect towards which he foresaw he might be tending. 

To Mr. Lorry, he commended them all, and explained his 
worldly affairs. That done, with many added sentences of 
grateful friendship and warm attachment, all was done. He 
never thought of Carton. His mind was so full of the others, 
that he never once thought of him. 

He had time to finish these letters before the lights were 
put out. When he lay down on his straw bed, he thought 
he had done with this world. 

But it beckoned him back in his sleep, and showed itself 
in shining forms. Free and happy, back in the old house in 





478 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Soho (though it had nothing in it like the real house), unac¬ 
countably released and light of heart, he was with Lucie 
again, and she told him it was all a dream, and he had never 
gone away. A pause of forgetfulness, and then he had even 
suffered, and had come back to her, dead and at peace, and 
yet there was no difference in him. Another pause of oblivi¬ 
on, and k he awoke in the sombre morning, unconscious 
where he was or what had happened, until it flashed upon his 
mind, “this is the day of my death!” 

Thus had he come through the hours, to the day when the 
fifty-two heads were to fall. And now, while he was com¬ 
posed, and hoped that he could meet the end with quiet hero¬ 
ism, a new action began in his waking thoughts, which was 
very difficult to master. 

He had never seen the instrument that was to terminate 
his life. How high it was from the ground, how many steps 
it had, where he would be stood, how he would be touched, 
whether the touching hands would be dyed red, which way 
his face would be turned, whether he would be the first, or 
might be the last: these and many similar questions, in no 
wise directed by his will, obtruded themselves over and over 
again, countless times. Neither were they connected with 
fear: he was conscious of no fear Rather, they originated in 
a strange besetting desire to know what to do when the time 
came; a desire gigantically disproportionate to the few swift 
moments to which it referred; a wondering that was more like 
the wondering of some other spirit within his, than his own. 

The hours went on as he walked to and fro, and the clocks 
struck the numbers he would never hear again. Nine gone 
for ever, ten gone for ever, eleven gone for ever, twelve coming 
on to pass away. After a hard contest with that eccentric 
action of thought which had last perplexed him, he had got 
the better.of it. He walked up and down, softly repeating 


FIFTY-TWO 


479 


I their names to himself. The worst of the strife was over. 

| He could walk up and down, free from distracting fancies, 
praying for himself and for them. 

Twelve gone for ever. 

He had been apprised that the final hour was Three, and 
he knew he would be summoned some time earlier, inasmuch 
as the tumbrils jolted heavily and slowly through the streets. 
Therefore, he resolved to keep Two before his mind, as the 
hour, and so to strengthen himself in the interval that he 
might be able, after that time, to strengthen others. 

Walking regularly to and fro with his arms folded on his 
breast, a very different man from the prisoner who had 
walked to and fro at La Force, he heard One struck away 
from him, without surprise. The hour had measured like 
most other hours. Devoutly thankful to Heaven for his 
recovered self-possession, he thought, “There is but another 
now,” and turned to walk again. 

Footsteps in the stone passage outside the door. He 
stopped. 

The key was put in the lock, and turned. Before the door 
was opened, or as it opened, a man said in a low voice, in 
English: “He has never seen me here; I have kept out of 
his way. Go you in alone; I wait near. Lose no time/” 

The door was quickly opened and closed, and there stood 
before him face to face, quiet, intent upon him, with the 
light of a smile on his features, and a cautionary finger on his 
lip, Sydney Carton. 

There was something so bright and remarkable in his look, 
that, for the first moment, the prisoner misdoubted him to 
be an apparition of his own imagining. But he spoke, and 
it was his voice; he took the prisoner’s hand, and it was his 
real grasp. 




480 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“Of all the people upon earth, you least expected to see 
me?” he said. 

“I could not believe it to be you. I can scarcely believe 
it now. You are not”—the apprehension came suddenly 
into his mind—“a prisoner?” 

“No. I am accidentally possessed of a power over one of 
the keepers here, and in virtue of it I stand before you. I 
come from her—your wife, dear Darnay.” 

The prisoner wrung his hand. 

“I bring you a request from her.” 

“What is it?” 

“A most earnest, pressing, and emphatic entreaty, ad- j 
dressed to you in the most pathetic tones of the voice so dear 
to you, that you well remember.” 

The prisoner turned his face partly aside. 

“You have no time to ask me why I bring it, or what it 
means; I have no time to tell you. You must comply with 
it—take off those boots you wear, and draw on these of mine.” ; 

There was a chair against the wall of the cell, behind the 
prisoner. Carton, pressing forward, had already, with the 
speed of lightning, got him down into it, and stood over him, 
barefoot. 

“Draw on these boots of mine. Put your hands to them; 
put your will to them. Quick!”. 

“Carton, there is no escaping from this place; it never 
can be done. You will only die with me. It is madness.” 

“It would be madness if I asked you to escape; but do I? 
\\ hen I ask you to pass out at that door, tell me it is madness 
and remain here. Change that cravat for this of mine, that 
coat for this of mine. While you do it, let me take this 
ribbon from your hair, and shake out your hair like this of 
mine!” 

' With wonderful quickness, and with a strength both of 


/ 



FIFTY-TWO 


481 


will and action, that appeared quite supernatural, he forced 
all these changes upon him. The prisoner was like a young 
| child in his hands. 

“Carton! Dear Carton! It is madness. It cannot be 
accomplished, it never can be done, it has been attempted, 
and has always failed. I implore you not to add your death 
to the bitterness of mine.” 

“Do I ask you, my dear Darnay, to pass the door? When 
I ask that, refuse. There are pen and ink and paper on this 
table. Is your hand steady enough to write?” 

“It was when you came in.” 

“Steady it again, and write what I shall dictate. Quick^ 
friend, quick!” 

Pressing his hand to his bewildered head, Darnay sat down 
at the table. Carton, with his right hand in his breast, stood 
close beside him. 

“Write exactly as I speak.” 

“To vrhom do I address it?” 

“To no one.” Carton still had his hand in his breast. 

“Do I date it?” 

“No.” 

The prisoner looked up, at each question. Carton, stand¬ 
ing over him with his hand in his breast, looked down. 

“ ‘If you remember/ ” said Carton, dictating, “ ‘the words 
that passed between us, long ago, you will readily comprehend 
this when you see it. You do remember them, I know. It 
is not in your nature to forget them.’ ” 

He was drawing his hand from his breast; the prisoner 
chancing to look up in his hurried wonder as he wrote, the 
hand stopped, closing upon something. 

“Have you written ‘forget them!’ ” Carton asked. 

“I have. Is that a weapon in your hand?” 

“No; I am not armed.” 



482 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“What is it in your hand?” 

“You shall know directly. Write on; there are but a few 
words more.” He dictated again. “ ‘I am thankful that 
the time has come, when I can prove them. That I do so is 
no subject for regret or grief.’ ” As he said these words with 
his eyes fixed on the writer, his hand slowly and softly moved 
down close to the writer’s face. 

The pen dropped from Darnay’s fingers on the table, and 
he looked about him vacantly. 

“What vapour is that?” he asked. 

“Vapour?” 1 

“Something that crossed me?” 

I am conscious of nothing; there can be nothing here. 
Take up the pen and finish. Hurry, hurry!” 

As if his memory were impaired, or his faculties disordered, 
the prisoner made an effort to rally his attention. As he 
looked at Carton with clouded eyes and with an altered 
manner of breathing, Carton—his hand again in his breast- 
looked steadily at him. 

“Hurry, hurry!” 

The prisoner bent over the paper once more. 

“ ‘ If il had been otherwise;’ ” Carton’s hand was again 
watchfully and softly stealing down; “ ‘I never should have 
used the longer opportunity. If it had been otherwise-’” 
the hand was at the prisoner’s face; ‘ “I should but have had 
so much the more to answer for. If it had been other- 

"2 ,e_ ” , Cart ? n looked at the pen and saw it was trailing 
off into unintelligible signs. 

Carton’s hand moved back to his breast no more. The 
prisoner sprang up with a reproachful look, but Carton’s 
hand was close and firm at his nostrils, and Carton’s left arm 
caught him round the waist. For a few seconds he faintly 

1 See Introduction p. sa 


FIFTY-TWO 


483 


struggled with the man who had come to lay down his life for 
him; but, within a minute or so, he was stretched insensible on 
the ground. 

Quickly, but with hands as true to the purpose as his heart 
was, Carton dressed himself in the clothes the prisoner had 
laid aside, combed back his hair, and tied it with the ribbon 
the prisoner had worn. Then, he softly called, “Enter there! 
Come in!” and the Spy presented himself. 

“You see?” said Carton, looking up, as he kneeled on one 
knee beside the insensible figure, putting the paper in the 
breast, “is your hazard very great?” 

“Mr. Carton,” the Spy answered, with a timid snap of his 
fingers, “my hazard is not that, in the thick of business here, 
if you are true to the w r hole of your bargain.” 

“Don’t fear me. I will be true to the death.” 

“You must be, Mr. Carton, if the tale of fifty-two is to be 
right. Being made right by you in that dress, I shall have 
no fear.” 

“Have no fear! I shall soon be out of the way of harming 
you, and the rest will soon be far from here, please God! 
Now, get assistance and take me to the coach.” 

“You?” said the Spy nervously. 

“Him, man, with whom I have exchanged. You go out at 
the gate by which you brought me in?” 

“Of course.” 

“I was weak and faint when you brought me in, and I am 
fainter now you take me out. The parting interview has 
overpowered me. Such a thing has happened here, often, 
and too often. Your life is in your own hands. Quick! 
Call assistance!” 

“You swear not to betray me?” said the trembling Spy, 
as he paused for a last moment. 

“Man, man!” returned Carton, stamping his foot; “have 


484 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


I sworn by no solemn vow already, to go through with this, 
that you waste the precious moments now? Take him 
yourself to the court-yard you know of, place him yourself in 
the carriage, show him yourself to Mr. Lorry, tell him 
yourself to give him no restorative but air, and to remember 
my words of last night, and his promise of last night, and 
drive away!” 

1 he Spy -withdrew^, and Carton seated himself at the table, 
resting his forehead on his hands. The Spy returned im¬ 
mediately, with two men. 

“How% then?” said one of them, contemplating the fallen 
figure. So afflicted to find that his friend has drawn a prize 
in the lottery of Sainte Guillotine?” 

A good patriot,” said the other, “could hardly have been 
more afflicted if the Aristocrat had drawn a blank.” 

They raised the unconscious figure, placed it on a litter 
they had brought to the door, and bent to carrv it aw’av. 

“The time is short, Evremonde,” said the Spy, in a warn¬ 
ing voice. 

“I know it well,” answered Carton. “Be careful of my 
friend, I entreat you, and leave me.” 

“Come, then, my children,” said Barsad. “Lift him, and 
come away!” 

The door closed, and Carton w r as left alone. Straining his 
powers of listening to the utmost, he listened for any sound 
that might denote suspicion or alarm. There was none. 
Keys turned, doors clashed, footsteps passed along distant 
passages: no cry was raised, or hurry made, that seemed 
unusual. Breathing more freely in a little while, he sat down 
at the table, and listened again until the clock struck Two. 

Sounds that he was not afraid of, for he divined their 
meaning, then began to be audible. Several doors were 
Opened in succession, and finally his own. A gaoler, with * 


FIFTY-TWO 


485 


list in his hand, looked in, merely saying, “Follow me, 
Evremonde!” and he followed into a large dark room, at a 
distance. It was a dark winter day, and what with the 
shadows within, and what with the shadows without, he 
could but dimly discern the others who were brought there 
to have their arms bound. Some were standing; some seated. 
Some were lamenting, and*in restless motion; but these were 
few. The great majority were silent and still, looking 
fixedly at the ground. 

As he stood by the wall m a dim corner, while some of 
the fifty-two were brought in after him, one man stopped in 
passing, to embrace him, as having a knowledge of him. it 
thrilled him with a great dread of discovery; but the man 
went on. A very few moments after that, a young woman, 
with a slight girlish form, a sweet spare face in which there 
was no vestige of colour, and large widely opened patient 
eyes, rose from the seat where he had observed her sitting, 
and came to speak to him. 

“Citizen Evremonde,” she said, touching him with her 
cold hand. “I am a poor little seamstress, who was with 
you in La Force.” 

He murmured for answer: “True. I forget what you were 
accused of?” 

“Plots. Though the just Heaven knows I am innocent of 
any. Is it likely? Who would think of plotting with a 
poor little weak creature like me?” 

The forlorn smile with which she said it, so touched hitn, 
that tears started from his eyes. 

“I am not afraid to die, Citizen Evremonde, but I have 
done nothing. I am not unwilling to die, if the Republic 
which is to do so much good to us poor, will profit by my 
death; but I do not know how that can be, Citizen Evr6- 
monde. Such a poor weak little creature!” 



486 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


As the last thing on earth that his heart was to warm and 
soften to, it warmed and softened to this pitiable girl. 

“I heard you were released, Citizen Evremonde. I hoped 
it was true?” 

“It was. But, I was again taken and condemned.” 

‘If I may ride with you, Citizen Evremonde, will you let 
me hold your hand? I am not afraid, but I am little and 
weak, and it will give me more courage.” 

As the patient eyes were lifted to his face, he saw a sudden 
doubt in them, and then astonishment. He pressed the 
work-worn, hunger-worn young fingers, and touched his 
lips. 

“Are you dying for him?” she whispered. 

“And his wife and child. Hush! Yes.” 

O you will let me hold your brave hand, stranger?” 

“Hush! Yes, my poor sister; to the last.” 

The same shadows that are falling on the prison, are fall¬ 
ing, in that same hour of the early afternoon, on the Barrier 
with the crowd about it, when a coach going out of Paris 
drives up to be examined. 

“Who goes here? Whom have we within? Papers!” 

The papers are handed out, and read. 

“Alexandre Manette. Physician. French. Which is he?” 

This is he; this helpless, inarticulately murmuring, wander¬ 
ing old man pointed out. 

“Apparently the Citizen-Doctor is not in his right mind? 
The Revolution-fever will have been too much for him?” 

Greatly too much for him. 

“Hah! Many suffer with it. Lucie. His daughter. French. 
Which is she?” 

This is she. 


FIFTY-TWO 


487 


“Apparently it must be. Lucie, the ~ife of Evremonde; 
is it not?” 

It is. 

“Hah! Evremonde has an assignation elsewhere. Lucie^ 
her child. English. This is she?” 

She and no other. 

“Kiss me, child of Evr6monde. Now, thou hast kissed a 
good Republican; something new in thy family; remember 
it! Sydney Carton. Advocate. English. Which is he?” 

He lies here in this corner of the carriage. He, too, is 
pointed out. 

“Apparently the English advocate is in a swoon?” 

It is hoped he will recover in the fresher air. It is repre 
sen ted that he is not in strong health, and has separated 
sadly from a friend who is under the displeasure of the 
Republic. 

“Is that all? It is not a great deal, that! Many are 
under the displeasure of the Republic, and must look out at 
the little window. 1 Jarvis Lorry. Banker. English. Which 
is he?” 

“I am he. Necessarily, being the last.” 

It is Jarvis Lorry who has replied to all the previous 
questions. It is Jarvis Lorry who has alighted and stands 
with his hand on the coach door, replying to a group of 
officials. They leisurely walk round the carriage and leisure¬ 
ly mount the box, to look at what little luggage it carries on 
the roof; the country-people hanging about, press nearer 
to the coach doors and greedily stare in; a little child, car¬ 
ried by its mother, has its short arm held out for it, that 
it may touch the wife of an aristocrat who has gone to the 
Guillotine. 

“Behold your papers, Jarvis Lorry, countersigned.” 

1 Must be beheaded. 




488 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“One can depart, citizen?” 

“One can depart. Forward, my postilions! A good 
journey!” 

“I salute you, citizens.—And the first danger passed!” 

These are again the words of Jarvis Lorry, as he clasps 
his hands, and looks upward. There is terror in the car¬ 
riage, there is weeping, there is the heavy breathing of the 
insensible traveller. 

“Are we not going too slowly? Can they not be induced 
to go faster?” asks Lucie, clinging to the old man. 

“It would seem like flight, my darling. I must not urge 
them too much; it would rouse suspicion.” 

“Look back, look back, and see if we are pursued!” 

The road is clear, my dearest, So far. we are not pur¬ 
sued.” 

Houses in twos and threes pass by us, solitary farms, ruin¬ 
ous buildings, dye-works, tanneries, and the like, open coun¬ 
try, avenues of leafless trees. The hard uneven pavement 
is under us, the soft deep mud is on either side. Sometimes, 
we strike into the skirting mud, to avoid the stones that 
clatter us and shake us; sometimes we stick in ruts and 
sloughs there. The agony of our impatience is then so great, 
that in our wild alarm and hurry we are for getting out and 
running hiding—doing anything but stopping. 

Out of the open country, in again among ruinous buildings, 
solitary farms, dye-works, tanneries, and the like, cottages in 
twos and threes, avenues of leafless trees. Have these men 
deceived us, and taken us back by another road? Is not this 
the same place twice over? Thank Heaven, no. A village. 
Look back, look back, and see if we are pursued! Hush! 
the posting-house. 

Leisurely, our four horses are taken out; leisurely, the 
coach stands in the little street, bereft of horses, and with no 


FIFTY-TWO 


489 


likelihood upon it of ever moving again; leisurely, the new 
horses come into visible existence, one by one; leisurely, the 
new postilions follow, sucking and plaiting the lashes of their 
whips; leisurely, the old postilions count their money, make 
wrong additions, and arrive at dissatisfied results. All the 
time, our overfraught hearts are beating at a rate that would 
far outstrip the fastest gallop of the fastest horses ever foaled. 

At length the new postilions are in their saddles, and the 
old are left behind. We are through the village, up the hill, 
and down the hill, and on the low watery grounds. Sudden¬ 
ly, the postilions exchange speech with animated gesticula¬ 
tion, and the horses are pulled up, almost on their haunches. 
We are pursued? 

“Ho! Within the carriage there. Speak then!” 

“What is it?” asks Mr. Lorry, looking out at window. 

“How many did they say?” 

“I do not understand you.” 

“—At the last post. How many to the Guillotine to-day?” 

“Fifty-two.” 

“I said so! A brave number! My fellow-citizen here 
would have it forty-two; ten more heads are worth having. 
The Guillotine goes handsomely. I love it. Hi forward. 
Whoop!” 

The night comes on dark. He moves more; he is begin¬ 
ning to revive, and to speak intelligibly; he thinks they are 
still together; he asks him, by h's name, what he has in his 
hand, O pity us, kind Heaven, and help us! Look out, look 
out, and see if we are pursued. 

The wind is rushing after us, and the clouds are flying 
after us, and the moon is plunging after us, and the whole 
wild night is in pursuit of us; but, so far, we are pursued by 
nothing else 



CHAPTER XIV. 


THE KNITTING DONE 

In that same juncture of time when the Fifty-Two awaited 
their fate, Madame Defarge held darkly ominous council 
with The Vengeance and Jacques Three of the Revolutionary 
Jury. Not in the wine-shop did Madame Defarge confer 
with these ministers, but in the shed of the wood-sawyer, 
erst a mender of roads. The sawyer himself did not parti¬ 
cipate in the conference, but abided at a little distance, like 
an outer satellite who was not to speak until required, or to 
> offer an opinion until invited. 

“But our Defarge,” said Jacques Three, “is undoubtedly 
a good Republican? Eh?” 

“There is no better,” the voluble Vengeance protested in 
her shrill notes, “in France.” 

“Peace, little Vengeance,” said Madame Defarge, laying 
her hand with a slight frown on her lieutenant’s lips, “hear 
me speak. My husband, fellow-citizen, is a good Republican 
and a bold man; he has deserved well of the Republic, and 
possesses its confidence. But my husband has his weak¬ 
nesses, and he is so weak as to relent towards this Doctor.” 

“It is a great pity,” croaked Jacques Three, dubiously 
shaking his head, with his cruel fingers at his hungry mouth; 
it is not quite like a good citizen; it is a thing to regret.” 

“See you,” said madame, “I care nothing for this Doctor, I. 
He may wear his head or lose it, for any interest I have in 
him: it is all one to me. But, the Evremonde people are to 
be exterminated, and the wife and child must follow the 
husband and father.” 


490 





THE KNITTING DONE 


491 


“She has a fine head for it,” croaked Jacques Three. “I 
have seen blue eyes and golden hair there, and they looked 
charming when Samson held them up.” Ogre that he was, 
he spoke like an epicure. 

Madame Defarge cast down her eyes, and reflected a little. 

“The child also,” observed Jacques Three, with a medita¬ 
tive enjoyment of his words, “has golden hair and blue eyes. 
And we seldom have a child there. It is a pretty sight!” 

“In a word,” said Madame Defarge, coming out of her 
short abstraction, “I cannot trust my husband in this matter. 
*Not only do I feel, siilce last night, that I dare not confide to 
him the details of my projects; but also I feel that if I delay, 
there is danger of his giving warning, and then they might 
escape.” 

“That must never be,” croaked Jacques Three; “no one 
must escape. We have not half enough as it is. We ought 
to have six score a day.” 

“In a word,” Madame Defarge went on, “my husband has 
not my reason for pursuing this family to annihilation, and 
I have not his reason for regarding this Doctor with any sen¬ 
sibility. I must act for myself, therefore. Come hither, little 
citizen.” 

The wood-sawyer, who held her in the respect, and him¬ 
self in the submission, of mortal fear, advanced with his hand 
to his red cap. 

“Touching those signals, little citizen,” said Madame De¬ 
farge, sternly, “that she made to the prisoners; you are ready 
to bear witness to them this very day?” 

“Ay, ay, why not!” cried the sawyer. “Every day, in aft 
weathers, from two to four, always signalling, sometimes with 
the little one, sometimes without. I know what I know. 1 
have seen with my eyes.” 

He made all manner of gestures while he spoke, as if in 



492 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


incidental imitation of some few of the great diversity of sig¬ 
nals that he had never seen. 

“Clearly plots,” said Jacques Three. “Transparently!” 

“There is no doubt of the Jury?” inquired Madame De- 
farge, letting her eyes turn to him with a gloomy smile. 

“Rely upon the patriotic Jury, dear citizeness. I answer 
for my fellow-jurymen.” 

“Now, let me see,” said Madame Defarge, pondering again. 
“Yet once more! Can I spare this Doctor to my husband? 
I have no feeling either way. Can I spare him?” 

“He would count as one head,” observed Jacques Three, 
in a low voice. “We really have not heads enough; it would 
be a pity, I think.” 

“He was signalling with her when I saw her,” argued Mad¬ 
ame Defarge; “I cannot speak of one without the other; and 
I must not be silent, and trust the case wholly to him, this 
little citizen here. For, I am not a bad witness.” 

The Vengeance and Jacques Three vied with each other in 
their fervent protestations that she was the most admirable 
and marvellous of witnesses. The little citizen, not to be 
outdone, declared her to be a celestial witness. 

“He must take his chance,” said Madame Defarge. “No, 
I cannot spare him! You are engaged at three o’clock; you 
are going to see the batch of to-day executed.—You?” 

The question was addressed to the wood-sawyer, who hur¬ 
riedly replied in the affirmative: seizing the occasion to add 
that he was the most ardent of Republicans, and that he 
would be in effect the most desolate of Republicans, if any¬ 
thing prevented him from enjoying the pleasure of smoking 
his afternoon pipe in the contemplation of the droll national 
barber. He was so very demonstrative herein, that he might 
have been suspected (perhaps was, by the dark eyes that 
looked contemptuously at him out of Madame Defarge’s 


THE KNITTING DONE 


493 


head) of having his small individual fears for his own personal 
safety, every hour in the day. 

I, said madame, “am equally engaged at the same place. 
After it is over-say at eight to-night-come you to me, in 
Saint Antoine, and we will give information against these 
people at my Section.” 

The wood-sawyer said that he would be proud and flattered 
to attend the citizeness. The citizeness looking at him, he 
became embarrassed, evaded her glance as a small dog would 
have done, retreated among his wood, and hid his confusion 
over the handle of his saw. 

Madame Defarge beckoned the Juryman and The Ven¬ 
geance a little nearer to the door, and there expounded her 
further views to them thus: 

“She will now be at home, awaiting the moment of his 
death. She will be mourning and grieving, She will be in 
a state of mind to impeach the justice of the Republic. She 
will be full of sympathy with its enemies. I will go to her." 

What an admirable woman; what an adorable woman!" 

| exclaimed JacquesThree, rapturously. “Ah, my cherished!" 

; cried The Vengeance; and embraced her. 

Take you my knitting," said Madame Defarge, placing 
it in her lieutenant s hands, “and have it ready for me in my 
usual seat. Keep me my usual chair. Go you there, straight, 
for there will probably be a greater concourse than usual, to¬ 
day." 

“I willingly obey the orders of my Chief," said The Vem 
geance with alacrity, and kissing her cheek. “You will not 
be late?" 

I shall be there before the commencement." 

And before the tumbrils arrive. Be sure you are there, 
my soul," said The Vengeance, calling after her, for she had 



494 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


already turned into the street, “before the tumbrils arrive! 1 

Madame Defarge slightly waved her hand, to imply that 
she heard, and might be relied upon to arrive in good time, 
and so went through the mud, and round the corner of the 
prison wall. The Vengeance and the Juryman, looking after 
her as she walked away, were highly appreciative of her fine 
figure, and her superb moral endowments. 

There were many women at that time, upon whom the 
time laid a dreadfully disfiguring hand; but there was not one 
among them more to be dreaded than this ruthless woman, 
now taking her way along the streets. Of a strong and fear¬ 
less character, of shrewd sense and readiness, of great deter¬ 
mination, of that kind of beauty which not only seems to im¬ 
part to its possessor firmness and animosity, but to strike in¬ 
to others an instinctive recognition of those qualities; the 
troubled time would have heaved her up, under any circum¬ 
stances. But, imbued from her childhood with a brooding 
sense of wrong, and an inveterate hatred of a class, oppor¬ 
tunity had developed her into a tigress. She was absolutely 
without pity. If she had ever had the virtue in her, it had 
quite gone out of her. 

It was nothing to her, that an innocent man was to die for 
the sins of his forefathers; she saw, not him, but them. It 
was nothing to her, that his wife was to be made a widow and 
his daughter an orphan; that was insufficient punishment, 
because they were her natural enemies and her prey, and as 
such had no right to live. To appeal to her, was made hope¬ 
less by her having no sense of pity, even for herself. If she 
had been laid low in the streets, in any of the many encoun¬ 
ters in which she had been engaged, she would not have pitied 
herself; nor, if she had been ordered to the axe to-morrow 
would she have gone to it with any softer feeling than a fierce 
desb^ in pliamre places with the man who sent her there. 


THE KNITTING DONE 


495 


Such a heart Madame Defarge carried under her rough 
, robe. Carelessly worn, it was a becoming robe enough, in a 
certain weird way, and her dark hair looked rich under her 
- coarse red cap. Lying hidden in her bosom, was a loaded pis¬ 
tol. Lying hidden at her waist, was a sharpened dagger. 
Thus accoutred, and walking with the confident tread of such 
a character, and with the supple freedom of a woman who had 
habitually walked in her girlhood, bare-foot and bare-legged, 
on the brown sea-sand, Madame Defarge took her way along 
the streets. 

Now, when the journey of the travelling coach, at that very 
moment waiting for the completion of its load, had been plan¬ 
ned out last night, the difficulty of taking Miss Pross in it had 
much engaged Mr. Lorry’s attention. It was not merely de¬ 
sirable to avoid overloading the coach, but it was of the high¬ 
est importance that the time occupied in examining it and its 
passengers, should be reduced to the utmost; since their es¬ 
cape might depend on the saving of only a few seconds here 
and there. Finally, he had proposed, after anxious consider¬ 
ation, that Miss Pross and Jerry, who were at liberty to leave 
the city, should leave it at three o’clock in the lightest-wheeled 
conveyance known to that period. Unencumbered with lug¬ 
gage, they would soon overtake the coach, and, passing it and 
preceding it on the road, would order its horses in advance, 
and greatly facilitate its progress during the precious hours 
of the night, when delay was the most to be dreaded. 

Seeing in this arrangement the hope of rendering real ser¬ 
vice in that pressing emergency, Miss Pross hailed it with joy. 
She and Jerry had beheld the coach start, had known who it 
was that Solomon brought, had passed some ten minutes in 
tortures of suspense, and were now concluding their arrange¬ 
ments to follow the coach, even as Madame Defarge, taking 
her way throncrh the streets, now drew nearer and nearer tn 




496 


A TA. r E OF TWO C T T1ES 


the else-deserted lodging in which they held their consulta- 

“Now what do you think, Mr. Cruncher,” said Miss 
Pross, whose agitation was so great that she could hardly 
speak, or stand, or move, or live: “what do you think of our 
not starting from this court-yard? Another carriage having 
already gone from here to-day, it might awaken suspicion. 

“My opinion, miss,” returned Mr. Cruncher, “is as you’re 
right. Likewise wot I’ll stand by you, right or wrong. 

“I am so distracted with fear and hope for our precious 
creatures,” said Miss Pross, wildly crying, “that I am incap¬ 
able of forming any plan. Are you capable of forming an^ 
plan, my dear good Mr. Cruncher?” 

“Respectin’ a future spear o’ life, miss,” returned Mr. 
Cruncher, “I hope so. Respectin’ any present use o’ this 
here blessed old head o’ mine, I think not. Would you do 
me the favour, miss, to take notice o’ two promises and wows 
wot it is my wishes fur to record in this here crisis? 

“Oh, for gracious sake!” cried Miss Pross, still wildly cry¬ 
ing, “record them at once, and get them out of the way, like 
an excellent man.” 

“First,” said Mr. Cruncher, who was all in a tremble, and 
who spoke with an ashy and solemn visage, “them poor 
things well out o’ this, never no more will I do it, never no 
more!” - 

“I am quite sure, Mr. Cruncher,” returned Miss Pross, 
“that you never will do it again, whatever it is, and I beg 
you not to think it necessary to mention more particularly 
what it is.” 

“No, miss,” returned Jerry, “it shall not be named to you. 
Second: them poor things well out o’ this, and never no more 
will I interfere withMrs. Cruncher’s flopping, never no more!” 

“Whatever housekeeping arrangement that may be,” said 


THE KNITTING DONE 


497 


Miss Pross, striving to dry her eyes and compose herself, “I 
have no doubt it is best that Mrs. Cruncher should have it 
entirely under her own superintendence.—O my poor dar¬ 
lings!” 

“1 go so far as to say, miss, morehover,” proceeded Mr. 
Cruncher, with a most alarming tendency to hold forth as 
from a pulpit—“and let my words be took down and took 
to Mrs. Cruncher through yourself—that wot my opinions 
respectin’ flopping has undergone a change, and that wot I 
only hope with all my heart as Mrs. Cruncher may be a flop¬ 
ping at the present time.” 

“There, there, there! I hope she is, my dear man,” cried 
. the distracted Miss Pross, “and I hope she finds it answering 
her expectations.” 

“Forbid it,” proceeded Mr. Cruncher, with additional sol¬ 
emnity, additional slowness, and additional tendency to hold 
forth and hold out, “as anything wot I have ever said or done 
should be wisited on my earnest wishes for them poor creeturs 
now! Forbid it as we shouldn’t all flop (if it was anyways 
conwenient) to get ’em out o’ this here dismal risk! Forbid it, 
miss! Wot I say, for— bid it!” This was Mr. Cruncher’s 
conclusion after a protracted but vain endeavour to find a 
better one. 

And still Madame Defarge, pursuing her way along the 
streets, came nearer and nearer. 

“If ever we get back to our native land,” said Miss Pross, 
“you may rely upon my telling Mrs. Cruncher as much as 
I may be able to remember and understand of what you have 
so impressively said; and at all events you may be sure that 
I shall bear witness to your being thoroughly in earnest at 
this dreadful time. Now, pray let us think! My esteemed 
Mr. Cruncher, let us think!” 



498 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Still, Madame Defarge, pursuing her way along the streets, 
came nearer and nearer. 

“If you were to go before,” said Miss Pross, “and stop the 
* vehicle and horses from coming here, and were to wait some¬ 
where for me; wouldn’t that be best?” 

Mr. Cruncher thought it might be best. 

“Where could you wait for me?” asked Miss Pross. 

Mr. Cruncher was so bewildered that he could think of no 
locality but Temple Bar. Alas! Temple Bar was hundreds 
of miles away, and Madame Defarge was drawing very near 
indeed. 

“By the cathedral door,” said Miss Pross. “Would it be 
much out of the way, to take me in, near the great cathedral 
loor between the two towers?” 

“No, miss,” answered Mr. Cruncher. 

“Then, like the best of men,” said Miss Pross, “go to the 
posting-house straight, and make that change.” 

“I am doubtful,” saidMr. Cruncher, hesitating and shaking 
his head, “about leaving of you, you see. We don’t know 
what may happen.” 

“Heaven knows we don’t,” returned Miss Pross,“but have 
no fear for me. Take me in at the cathedral, at Three o’Clock^ 
or as near it as you can, and I am sure it will be better than 
our going from here. I feel certain of it. There! Bless 
you, Mr. Cruncher! Think—not of me, but of the lives that 
may depend on both of us!” 

This exordium, and Miss Pross’s two hands in quite agon¬ 
ized entreaty clasping his, decided Mr. Cruncher. With an 
encouraging nod or two, he immediately went out to alter 
the arrangements, and left her by herself to follow as she had 
proposed. 

The having originated a precaution which wa/j already in 
course of execution, was a great relief to Miss Pross. The 



THE KNITTING DONE 


499 


necessity of composing her appearance so that it should at¬ 
tract no special notice in the streets, was another relief. 
She looked at her watch, and it was twenty minutes past 
two. She had no time to lose, but must get ready at once. 

Afraid, in her extreme perturbation, of the loneliness of the 
deserted rooms, and of half-imagined faces peeping from be¬ 
hind every open door in them, Miss Pross got a basin of cold 
water and began laving her eyes, which were swollen and red. 
Haunted by her feverish apprehensions, she could not bear 
to have her sight obscured for a minute at a time by the drip¬ 
ping water, but constantly paused and looked round to see 
that there was no one watching her. In one of those pauses 
she recoiled and cried out, for she saw a figure standing in 
the room. 

The basin fell to the ground broken, and the water flowed 
to the feet of Madame Defarge. By strange stern ways, and 
through much staining blood, those feet had come to meet 
that water. 

Madame Defarge looked coldly at her, and said,“The wife 
of Evremonde; where is she?” 

It flashed upon Miss Press’s mind that the doors were all 
standing open, and would suggest the flight. Her first act 
was to shut them. There were four in the room, and she shut 
them all. She then placed herself before the door of the cham¬ 
ber which Lucie had occupied. 

Madame Defarge’s dark eyes followed her through this 
rapid movement, and rested on her when it was finished. 
Miss Pross had nothing beautiful about her; years had not 
tamed the wildness, or softened the grimness, of her appear¬ 
ance; but, she too was a determined woman in her different 
way, and she measured Madame Defarge with her eyes, every 
inch. 

“You might, from vour appearance, be the wife of Lucifer/* 





500 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


said Miss Pross, in her breathing. “Nevertheless, you shall 
not get the better of me. I am an Englishwoman. 

Madame Defarge looked at her scornfully, but still with 
something of Miss Pross’s own perception that they two were 
at bay. She saw a tight, hard, wiry woman before her, as 
Mr. Lorry had seen in the same figure a woman with a strong 
hand, in the years gone by. She knew full well that Miss 
Pross was the family’s devoted friend; Miss Pross knew full 
well that Madame Defarge was the family’s malevolent 
enemy. 

“On my way yonder,” said Madame Defarge, with a slight 
movement of her hand towards the fatal spot, where they 
reserve my chair and my knitting for me, I am come to make 
my compliments to her in passing. I wish to see her. 

“I know that your intentions are evil,” said Miss Pross, 
“and you may depend upon it, I’ll hold my own against 
them.” 

Each spoke in her own language; neither understood the 
other’s words; both were very watchful, and intent to deduce 
from look and manner, what the unintelligible words meant. 

“It will do her no good to keep herself concealed from me 
at this moment,” said Madame Defarge. “Good patriots 
will know what that means. Let me see her. Go tell her 
that I wish to see her. Do you hear?” 

“If those eyes of yours were bed-winches,” returned Miss 
Pross, “and I was an English four-poster, they shouldn’t 
loose a splinter of me. No, you wicked foreign woman; I am 
your match.” 

Madame Defarge was not likely to follow these idiomatic 
remarks in detail; but, she so far understood them as to per¬ 
ceive that she was set at naught. 

“Woman imbecile and pig-like!” said Madame Defarge, 
frowning. “I take no answer from you. I demand to see 


THE KNITTING DONE 


501 


her. Either tell her that I demand to see her, or stand out 
of the way of the door and let me go to her I” This, with an 
angry explanatory wave of her right arm. 

“I little thought/’ said Miss Pross, “that I should ever 
want to understand your nonsensical language; but I would 
give all I have, except the clothes I wear, to know whethei 
you suspect the truth, or any part of it.” 

Neither of them for a single moment released the other’s 
eyes. Madame Defarge had not moved from the spot 
where she stood when Miss Pross first became aware of her; 
but she now advanced one step. 

“I am a Briton,” said Miss Pross, “I am desperate. I 
don’t care an English Twopence for myself. I know that the 
longer I keep you here, the greater hope there is for my Lady¬ 
bird. I’ll not leave a handful of that dark hair upon your 
head, if you lay a finger on me!” 

Thus Miss Pross, with a shake of her head and a flash of 
her eyes between every rapid sentence, and every rapid sen¬ 
tence a whole breath. Thus Miss Pross, who had never 
struck a blow in her life. 

But, her courage was of that emotional nature that it 
brought the irrepressible tears into her eyes. This was a 
courage that Madame Defarge so little comprehended as to 
mistake for weakness. “Ha, ha!” she laughed, “you poor 
wretch! What are you worth! I address myself to that 
Doctor.” Then she raised her voice and called out, “Citizen 
Doctor! Wife of Evremonde! Child of Evremonde! Any 
person but this miserable fool, answer the Citizeness De¬ 
farge!” 

Perhaps the following silence, perhaps some latent dis¬ 
closure in the expression of Miss Pross’s face, perhaps a sud¬ 
den misgiving apart from either suggestion, whispered to 



502 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Madame Defarge that they were gone. Three of the doors 
she opened swiftly, and looked in. 

“Those rooms are all in disorder, there has been hurried 
packing, there are odds and ends upon the ground. There 
is no one in that room behind you! Let me look.” 

“Never!” said Miss Pross, who understood the request as 
perfectly as Madame Defarge understood the answer. 

“If they are not in that room, they are gone, and can be 
pursued and brought back,” said Madame Defarge to herself. 

“As long as you don’t know whether they are in that room 
or not, you are uncertain what to do,” said Miss Pross to her- 
self; “and you shall not know that, if I can prevent your 
knowing it; and know that, or not know that, you shall not 
iea\e here while I can hold you.” 

“I have been in the streets from the first, nothing has stop¬ 
ped me, I will tear you to pieces, but I will have you from 
that door,” said Madame Defarge. 

“We are alone at the top of a high house in a solitary court¬ 
yard, we are not likely to be heard, and I pray for bodily 
strength to keep you here, while every minute you are here 
is worth a hundred thousand guineas to my darling,” said 
Miss Pross. 

Madame Defarge made at the door. Miss Pross, on the 
instinct of the moment, seized her round the waist in both 
her arms, and held her tight. It was in vain forMadame De¬ 
farge to struggle and to strike;Miss Pross, with the vigorous 
tenacity of love, always so much stronger than hate, clasped 
her tight, and even lifted her from the floor in the struggle 
that they had. The two hands of Madame Defarge buffeted 
and tore her face; but, Miss ^ross, with her head down, held 
her round the waist, and clung to her with more than the 
hold of a drowning woman. 

Soon, Madame Defarge’s hands ceased to strike, and felt 



THE KNITTING DONE 


503 


at her encircled waist. “It is under my arm,” said Miss 
Pross, in smothered tones, “you shall not draw it. I am 
stronger than you, I bless Heaven for if. I’ll hold you till 
one or other of us faints or dies!” 

Madame Defarge’s hands were at her bosom. Miss Pross 
looked up, saw what it was, struck at it, struck out a flash 
and a crash, and stood alone—blinded with smoke. 

All this was in a second. As the smoke cleared, leaving an 
awiul stillness, it passed out on the air, like the soul of the 
furious woman whose body lay lifeless on the ground. 

In the first fright and horror of her situation, Miss Pross 
passed the body as far from it as she could, and ran down the 
stairs to call for fruitless help. Happily, she bethought her¬ 
self of the consequences of what she did, in time to check 
herself and go back. It was dreadful to go in at the door 
again; but, she did go in, and even went near it, to get the 
bonnet and other things that she must wear. These she 
I put on, out on the staircase, first shutting and locking the 
door and taking away the key. She then sat down on the 
stairs a few moments to breathe and to cry, and then got up 
and hurried away. 

By good fortune she had a veil on her bonnet, or she could 
hardly have gone along the streets without being stopped. By 
good fortune, too, she was naturally so peculiar in appearance 
as not to show disfigurement like any other woman. She 
needed both advantages, for the marks of griping fingers 
were deep in her face, and her hair was torn, and her dress 
(hastily composed with unsteady hands) was clutched and 
dragged a hundred ways. 

In crossing the bridge, she dropped the door key in the 
river. Arriving at the cathedral some few minutes before 
her escort, and waiting there, she thought, what if the key 
were already taken in a net, what if it were identified, what 






504 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


if the door were opened and the remains discovered, what if 
she were stopped at the gate, sent to prison, and charged with 
murder! In the midst of these fluttering thoughts, the escort 
appeared, took her in, and took her away. 

“Is there any noise in the streets?” she asked him. 

“The usual noises,” Mr. Cruncher replied; and looked sur¬ 
prised by the question and by her aspect. 

“I don’t hear you,” said Miss Pross. “What did you say?” 

It was in vain for Mr. Cruncher to repeat what he said; 
Miss Pross could not hear him. “So I’ll nod my head,” 
thoughtMr. Cruncher, amazed, “at all events she’ll see that.” 
And she did. 

“Is there any noise in the streets now?” asked Miss Pross 
again, presently. 

Again Mr. Cruncher nodded his head. 

“I don’t hear it.” 

“Gone deaf in an hour?” said Mr. Cruncher, ruminating, 
with his mind much disturbed; “wot’s come to her?” 

“I feel,” said Miss Pross, “as if there had been a flash and 
a crash, and that crash was the last thing I should ever hear 
in this life.” 

“Blest if she ain’t in a queer condition!” saidMr. Cruncher, 
more and more disturbed. “Wot can she have been a takin’, 
to keep her courage up? Hark! There’s the roll of them 
dreadful carts! You can hear that, miss?” 

“I can hear,” said Miss Pross, seeing that he spoke to her, 
“nothing. O, my good man, there was first a great crash, 
and then a great stillness, and that stillness seems to be fixed 
and unchangeable, never to be broken any more as long as 
my life lasts.” 

“If she don’t hear the roll of those dreadful carts, now very 
‘nigh their journey’s end,” saidMr. Cruncher, glancing over 



THE KNITTING DONE 


505 


his shoulder, “it’s my opinion that indeed she never will hear 
anything else in this world/’ 

And indeed she never did. 1 

1 Temporary, or even permanent, deafness may be caused by concus¬ 
sion. 


CHAPTER XV. 

THE FOOTSTEPS DIE OUT FOR EVER 

Along the Paris streets the death-carts rumble, hollow and 
harsh. Six tumbrils carry the day’s wine to La Guillotine. 
All the devouring and insatiate Monsters imagined since im¬ 
agination could record itself, are fused in the one realisation, 
Guillotine. And yet there is not in France, with its rich j 
variety of soil and climate, a blade, a leaf, a root, a sprig, a 
peppercorn, which will grow to maturity under conditions 
more certain than those that ha e produced this horror. 
Crush humanity out of shape once more, u ider similar ham¬ 
mers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. 
Sow the same seed of rapacious license and oppression over 
again, and it. will surely yield the same fruit according to its 
kind. 

Six tumbrils roll along the streets. Change these back 
again to what they were, thou powerful enchanter, Time, and 
they shall be seen to be the carnages of absolute monarchs, 
the equipages of feudal nobles, the toilettes of flaring Jezebels, 
the churches that are not my father’s house but dens of 
thieves, the huts of millions of starving peasants! No; the 
great magician who majestically works out the appointed 
order of the Creator, never reverses his transformations. “If 
thou be changed into this shape by the will of God,” say the 
yeers to the enchanted, in the wise Arabian stories, “then re¬ 
main so! But, if thou wear this form through mere passing 
conjuration, then resume thy former aspect!” Changeless 
and hopeless, the tumbrils roll along. 

As the sombre wheels of the six carts go round, they seem 

506 



THE FOOTSTEPS DIE OUT FOR EVER 


507 


to plough up a long crooked furrow among the populace in 
the streets. Ridges of faces are thrown to this side and to 
that, and the ploughs go steadily onward. So used are the 
regular inhabitants of the houses to the spectacle, that in 
many Windows there are no people, and in some the occupa¬ 
tion of the hands is not so much as suspended, while the eyes 
survey the faces in the tumbrils. Here and there, the inmate 
has visitors to see the sight; then he points his finger, with 
something of the complacency of a curator or authorised ex¬ 
ponent, to this cart and to this, and seems to tell who sat 
here yesterday, and who there the day before. 

Of the riders in the tumbrils, some observe these things, 
and all things on their last roadside, with an impassive stare; 
others, with a lingering interest in the ways of life and men. 
Some, seated with drooping heads, are sunk in silent despair; 
again, there are some so heedful of their looks that they cast 
upon the multitude such glances as they have seen in theatres, 
and in pictures. Several close their eyes, and think, or try 
to get their straying thoughts together. Only one, and he a 
miserable creature, of a crazed aspect, is so shattered and 
made drunk by horror, that he sings, and tries to dance. Not 
one of the whole number appeals by look or gesture, to the 
pity of the people. 

There is a guard of sundry horsemen riding abreast of the 
tumbrils, and faces are often turned up to some of them, 
and they are asked some question. It would seem to be 
always the same question, for, it is always followed by a press 
of people towards the third cart. Th*e horsemen abreast 
of that cart, frequently point out one man in it with their 
swords. The leading curiosity is, to know which is he; he 
stands at the back of the tumbril with his head bent down, 
to converse with a mere girl who sits on the side of the cart, 
and holds his hand. He has no curiosity or care for the scene 


508 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


about him, and always speaks to the girl. Here and there 
in the long street of St. Honore, cries are raised against him. 
If they move him at all, it is only to a quiet smile, as he shakes 
his hair a little more loosely about his face. He cannot easily 
touch his face, his arms being bound. 

On the steps of a church, awaiting the coming-up of the 
tumbrils, stands the Spy and prison-sheep. He looks into 
the first of them: not there. He looks into the second- not 
there. He already asks himself, “Has he sacrificed me?” 
when his face clears, as he looks into the third. 

“Which is Evremonde?” says a man behind him. 

“That. At the back there.’’ 

“With his hand in the girl’s?” 

“Yes.” 

The man cries, “Down, Evremonde i To the Guillotine all 
aristocrats! Down, Evreroonde!” 

“Hush, hush!” the Spy entreats him, timidly. 

“And why not. citizen?” 

“He is going to pay the forfeit: it will be paid in five min¬ 
utes more. Let him be at peace.” 

But the man continuing to exclaim, “Dowm, Evremonde!’’ 
the face of Evremonde is for a moment turned towards him. 
Evremonde then sees the Spy, and looks attentively at him, 
and goes his way. 

The clocks are on the stroke of three, and the furrow 
ploughed among the populace is turning round, to come on 
into the place of execution, and end. The ridges thrown to 
this side and to that, now crumble in and close behind the last 
plough as it passes on, for all are following to the Guillotine. 
In front of it, seated in chairs, as in a garden of public diver¬ 
sion, are a number of women, busily knitting. On one of the 
foremost chairs, stands The Vengeance, looking about for her 
friend. 




THE FOOTSTEPS DIE OUT FOR EVER 


509 


“Ther&se!” she cries, in her shrill tones. “Who has seen 
her? Therese Defarge!” 

“She never missed before/’ says a knitting-woman of the 
sisterhood. 

“No; nor will she miss now,” cries The Vengeance, petu¬ 
lantly. “Therese!” 

“Louder,” the woman recommends. 

Ay! Louder, Vengeance, much louder, and still she will 
scarcely hear thee. Louder yet, Vengeance, with a little 
oath or so added, and yet it will hardly bring her. Send 
other women up and down to seek her, lingering somewhere; 
and yet, although the messengers have done dread deeds, 
it is questionable whether of their own wills they will go far 
enough to find her! 

“Bad Fortune!” cries The Vengeance, stamping her foot 
in the chair, “and here are the tumbrils! And Evremonde 
will be despatched in a wink, and she not here! See her 
knitting in my hand, and her empty chair ready for her. I 
cry with vexation and disappointment!” 

As The Vengeance descends from her elevation to do it, 
the tumbrils begin to discharge their loads. The ministers 
of Sainte Guillotine are robed and ready. Crash!—A head 
is held up, and the knitting-women who scarcely lifted their 
eyes to look at it a moment ago when it could think and 
speak, count One. 

The second tumbril empties and moves on; the third comes 
up. Crash!—And the knitting-women, never faltering or 
pausing in their work, count Two. 

The supposed Evremonde descends, and the seamstress is 
lifted out next after him. He has not relinquished her pa¬ 
tient hand in getting out, but still holds it as he promised. 

He gentlv olaces her with her back to the crashing engine 


510 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


that constantly whirrs up and falls, and she looks into hi? 
face and thanks him. 

“But for you, dear stranger, I should not be so composed, 
for I am naturally a poor little thing, faint of heart; nor 
should I have been able to raise my thoughts to Him who 
was put to death, that we might have hope and comfort here 
to-day. I think you were sent to me by Heaven. ,, 

“Or you to me,” says Sydney Carton. “Keep your eyes 
upon me, dear child, and mind no other object.” 

“I mind nothing while I hold your hand. I shall mind 
nothing when I let it go, if they are rapid.” 

“They will be rapid. 1 Fear not!” 

The two stand in the fast-thinning; throng of victims, but 
they speak as if they were alone. Eye to eye, voice to voice, 
hand to hand, heart to heart, these two children of the Uni¬ 
versal Mother, else so wide apart and differing, have come 
together on the dark highway, to repair home together, and 
to rest in her bosom. 

“Brave and generous friend, will you let me ask you one 
last question? I am very ignorant, and it troubles me—iust 
a little.” 

“Tell me what it is.” 

I hav,e a cousin, an only relative and an orphan, like my¬ 
self, whom I love very dearly. She is five years younger than 
I, and she lives in a farmer s house in the south country. 
Poverty parted us, and she knows nothing of my fate—for I 
cannot write—and if I could, how should I tell her! It is 
better as it is.” 

“Yes, yes; better as it is.” 

“What I have been thinking as we came along, and what 
I am still thinking now, as I look into your kind strong face 
IVle! “ Samson s axe is rapid; one head per minute, or a little less.” Ca.‘ 


THE FOOTSTEPS DIE OUT FOR EVER 


511 


which gives me so much support, is this:—If the Republic 
really does good to the poor, and they come to be less hungry, 
and in all ways to suffer less, she may live a long time: she 
may even live to be old.” 

v “What then, my gentle sister?” 

“Do you think:” the uncomplaining eyes in which there 
is so much endurance, fill with tears, and the lips part a little 
more and tremble: “that it will seem long to me, while I 
wait for her in the better land where I trust both you and 1 
will be mercifully sheltered?” 

“It cannot be, my child; there is no Time there, and no 
trouble there.” 

“You comfort me so much! I am so ignorant. Am I to 
kiss you now? Is the moment come?” 

“Yes.” 

She kisses his lips; he kisses hers; they solemnly bless each 
other. The spare hand does not tremble as he releases it; 
nothing worse than a sweet, bright constancy is in the patient 
face. She goes next before him—is gone; the knitting-women 
count Twenty-Two. 

“I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord: he 
that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: 
and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” 

The murmuring of many voices, the upturning of many 
faces, the pressing on of many footsteps in the outskirts of 
'he crowd, so that it swells forward in a mass, like one great 
heave of water, all flashes away. Twenty-Three. 


They said of him, about the city that night, that it was 
the peacefulest man’s face ever beheld there. Many added 
that he looked sublime and prophetic. 

One of the most remarkable sufferers by the same axe— 



512 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


a woman— 1 had asked at the foot of the same scaffold, not 
long before, to be allowed to write down the thoughts that 
were inspiring her. If he had given an utterance to his, and 
they were prophetic, they would have been these: 

‘ I see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The Vengeance, the Jury¬ 
man, the Judge, long ranks of the new oppressors who have 
risen on the destruction of the old, perishing by this retribu¬ 
tive instrument, before it shall cease out of its present use. 
I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this 
abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs 
and defeats, through long long years to come, I see the evil 
of thi« time and of the previous time of which this is the na¬ 
tural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing 
out. 

“I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, use¬ 
ful, prosperous and happy, in that England which I shall see 
no more. I see Her with a child upon her bosom, who bears 
my name. I see her father, aged and bent, but otherwise 
restored, and faithful to all men in his healing office, and at 
peace. I see the good old man, so long their friend, in ten 
years time enriching them with all he has, and passing tran¬ 
quilly to his reward. 

"I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the 
hearts of their descendants, generations hence. I see her 
an old woman, weeping for me on the anniversary of this day 
I see her and her husband, their course done, lying side by 
side in their last earthly bed, and I know that each was not 
more honoured and held sacred in the other’s soul, than I 
was in the souls of both, 

I see that child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my 
,iame, a man winning his way up in that path of life which 

HI,'Book V? C R h°ap n n. p Se ^ Carl y le - BUtory of the French Revolution, Part 



THE FOOTSTEPS DIE OUT FOR EVER 


513 


once was mine. I see him winning it so well, that my name 
is made illustrious there by the light of his. I see the blots I 
threw upon it, faded away. I see him, foremost of just judges 
and honoured men, bringing a boy of my name, with a fore¬ 
head that I know and golden hair, to this place—then fair 
to look upon, with not a trace of this day’s disfigurement— 1 
and I hear him tell the child my story, with a tender and a 
faltering voice. 

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have evei 
done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever 
known.” 

i The guillotine -was set up in the Place de la Revolution. It is now the 
Place de la Concorde. At the entrance to the Champs-Ely s6es, and the 
Tuileries Gardens, it is the largest and finest square in Paris, and one of 
the finest in the world. In the center, on the spot where the guillotine 
stood, is the Obelisk of Euxor, and at the four corners are statues repre¬ 
senting the chief cities of France. 


SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS FOR THE STUDY OF 
A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


1. What ethical purpose did Dickens have in mind in writing 
this romance? 

2. Is Dickens an optimist or a pessimist? 

3. Whar. are his ideals of womanhood? 

4. How is Dickens's radicalism shown—for example, his hatred 
of barbarity in the law ? 

5. "What do you think of Dickens’s historical accuracy? Illus¬ 
trate from the text. 

6. To what historical sources was he indebted? 

7. What scenes best illustrate Dickens’s descriptive power? 

8. Where is Dickens’s habit of portraying inanimate objects 
so that they reflect a dominant mood best illustrated? 

9. Point out the merits of description of chapter II, Book I; 
and of chapter XIII, of Book III, beginning with line 2, p. 488. 

10. Is greater skill exhibited in the setting of the English in¬ 
cidents or in that of the French? 

11. To what extent is Dickens a realist ? 

12. What scenes best illustrate his realism ? 

13. What scenes are full of grotesque horror? 

14. What purpose is served by the introduction of chapters 
VII and VIII of the second book? 

15. Which is the most important element in this romance; 
the setting, the characterization, or the plot? 

16. The book was written with a view to dramatization. What 
scenes would be most effective on the stage? 

17. Read one of the stage versions of the story and point out the 
way in which the text of the romance has been adapted to stage 
requirements. 

18. Point out the dramatic quality in the plot. 

19. What chapters are episodes? 

20. Do these episodes justify themselves either by contributing 
to the progress of the storv, by throwing light on the period, or by 
revealing character? 


514 


SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS 


51£ 


21. Illustrate Dickens's use of the dramatic device of coinci¬ 
dence. 

22. Where is the climax of interest? Is this the most effective 
place for it? If so, why? 

23. What should you say of the device by which the substitution 
of Carton for Darnay in the prison is effected? 

24. What better means of bringing about that substitution can 
you suggest? 

25. Is the transference of the action from London to Paris 
cleverly managed? 

26. P. 170, 11.18-19 are prophetic of what follows. Point out 
other passages of a similar kind. 

27. Read any other novel by the same author, preferably 
Old Curiosity Shop or Martin Chuzzlewit, and compare it with 
this book in respect to plot construction. 

28. How is Dickens’s love of mystery illustrated by p. 143, 11. 
9-13? 

29. In which of the three ways open to a novelist does Dickens 
usually reveal the characters—by what he tells us about them; 
by what the other characters are made to say about them; or by 
what they themselves are made to do and say? 

30. Point out the advantages of the method he employs. 

31. What characters are contrasted? 

32. Is the idealization of any of them carried too far? 

33. What elements in the popular uprising of the Revolution are 
personified in Defarge; Madame Defarge; The Vengeance; Jacques, 
One, Two, and Three? 

34. Why are the latter designated in this waj', instead of being 
given separate names? 

35. Does Dickens seem more successful in portraying such 
characters as Monseigneur, or in such as Madame Defarge? 

36. How do you account for this difference-in skill ? 

37. What characters are but the exaggeration of a single trait? 

38. Of what single quality is Miss Pross the embodiment? 

39. What one of Dickens’s methods of character portrayal is 
illustrated by p. 78,1. 25 ff ? 

40. Which of the' characters seem most vital, most life-like? 

41. How does the end of chapter V, Book I, illustrate the state¬ 
ment that Carton’s qualities are presented didactically rather 
than dramatically? 


516 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


42. How docs Dickens account for Carton’s moral heroism? 

43. Is the progress of Carton’s preparation for his final sacrifice 
marked with sufficient clearness? 

44. What was gained by making Carton’s sacrifice a deliberate, 
rather than an impulsive, one? 

45. Is Carton’s own characterization of Lucie (p. 155, 1. 11) as 
“a golden-haired doll” an accurate one? 

46. Is Cruncher’s conversion (p. 497) sufficiently accounted for, 
or is this a stage-effect? 

47. Compare with Dickens’s treatment of the problem of alter¬ 
nating personality in the character of Dr. Manette, Robert Louis 
Stevenson’s treatment of the same problem in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. 
Hyde. 

48. In what instances has Dickens selected names to suit the 

characters? « 

49. Why did Dickens make Miss Pross the means of Madame 
Defarge’s death? See p. 494. 

50. How does p. 190,11.1-8, illustrate the quality of imagination 
in Dickens’s style? Select other passages illustrative of the same 
quality. 

51. What quality of style is illustrated on p. 60,11. 11-13? 

52. In what passages does Dickens become melodramatic? 

53. In what passages does the style tend to become metrical ? 

54. Where does Dickens use phrases which are afterwards em¬ 
ployed as a kind of refrain? 

55. What do you think of Dickens’s moral reflections, for in¬ 
stance, those on p. 60? 

56. How does Dickens increase the suspense of the reader in the 
trial scene, Book II, chapter III? 

57. What do you think of Dickens’s humor as illustrated by 
this book? Contrast the humor found in Pickwick. 

58. What can have been Dickens’s purpose in the introduction 
df Cruncher with his offensive “avocations”? 

59. What is the most genuinely pathetic scene in the book? 

60. Is Dickens successful in describing such scenes as that on 
/>p. 301-302? 

61. What characteristic features of Dickens’s work as found in 
any other of his novels you have read are absent in this book? 


APPENDIX 



\ 


0 





APPENDIX 


(Adapted, and enlarged, from the Manual for the Study of 
English Classics, by George L. Marsh) 

HELPS TO STUDY 

(Supplementary to “ Suggestive Questions,” pp. 514-516) 

Life of Dickens 

When and where was Dickens born? What is noteworthy about 
his parents? What use did he make of their characteristics in his 
stories? Of the events of his own childhood (pp. 5, 6)? 

Tell something of his reading as a boy. Why should it have bene¬ 
fited him? What author, represented in this reading, particularly 
influenced him in his tendency toward caricature? 

Describe the way in which Dickens became a literary man (p. 7). 
What was his first important publication, and how did it come to 
be written? 

Tell something of Dickens’s travels (pp. 9-12), especially of his 
first visit to America. How did he repay the kindness shown him? 

What various kinds of work did Dickens do besides the writing 
of novels? What was his success as a reader (p. 12) ? 

What is it important to know of Dickens’s private life during 
his later years, and of the circumstances of his death? When did 
he die? 

A Tale of Two Cities 

When was the Tale published? At what period in Dickens’s 
career as a novelist? Under the direct influence of what famous 
book? 

See the editor’s “Suggestions for Study,” pages 41-43, espe¬ 
cially in relation to the use of Carlyle’s French Revolution for 
illustrative matter and as a “source-book”j references to it are 
given in frequent foot-notes. The influence of Carlyle’s lurid style 
on Dickens may also be studied with interest. 

Compare and contrast A Tale of Two Cities, as a historical novel, 

519 


520 


APPENDIX 


with Ivanhoe or other novels by Scott, or with Henry Esmond. 
Does Dickens introduce any actual historical characters? 

Do you find Dickens’s optimism (p. 17) shown in A Tale of Two 
Cities? If so, where and how? 

Comment on the humor in A Tale of Two Cities. Do you find 
here the tendency toward caricature for which Dickens is often 
criticized? Are there any characters who are regularly identified 
by a single action or mode of speech (p. 18) ? 

What was Dickens’s attitude towards the poor? Where is it 
shown chiefly in A Tale of Two Cities? Give specific illustrations. 
Is the Tale in any sense a novel with a purpose? Is Dickens’s 
humanitarian tendency prominent? 

What is usually most prominent in Dickens—plot or characteriza¬ 
tion (p. 21) ? What of A Tale of Two Cities in this respect? 

Point out in the Tale a number of the most striking examples of 
contrast (pp. 24-5, 37-8) that you find: as at the end of Chap. IX, 
Book II; between Chaps. X and XI, XII and XIII, of Book II; 
etc. 

Do you find in A Tale of Two Cities prose passages of such 
poetical rhythm as is described on pages 27, 28? Do you find other 
poetical characteristics besides rhythm (the use of a sort of re¬ 
frain, for instance) ? Are all such devices effective where you 
find them? 

Is there notable use of landscape as an aid to emotional effect in 
the Tale? Give examples, if you find any. In connection with the 
use of nature is there a tendency to attribute human feelings to 
inanimate objects (the “pathetic fallacy”)? If you find exam¬ 
ples of this, are they effective? 

Comment on pathos in the Tale. Point out the most pathetic 
passages. Is any one distinctly better than the others? Do you 
find a difference between the pathos here and in other of Dickens’s 
novels, as Dombey and Son or Old Curiosity Shop? Is there any 
mawkish pathos, any unpleasant sentimentalism, in A Tale of Two 
Cities? 

Dickens has been criticized for diffuseness. Do you find any 
diffuseness in A Tale? Where, if at all? Does this novel answer 
other criticisms of Dickens (pp. 32, 35, etc.) ? 

Is there satire in A Tale of Two Cities? (See, for example p 
110; Book II, Chap. VII, etc.) 


APPENDIX. 


521 


Point out some of the best examples you find of minute, vivid 
^ description; of detailed place settings. Reproduce some of the 
descriptions; as of Tellson’s (II, 1), Manette’s home in Soho (II, 
6), the ‘ ‘ Grindstone * ’ (p. 369), etc. (Roman numerals refer to 
“Book” numbers; Arabic numerals, to chapter numbers.) 

Examine the dramatic elements pointed out on pages 36, 37, and 
add others to the list. Point out additional examples of such catch 
phrases as are described on pages 39, 40. 

Note the elaborate balance at the beginning ofi I, 1. Find ex¬ 
amples of a similar device elsewhere in the book. 

Chap. I of Book I may be called a 11 background chapter. ’ * Are 
i there others in the book? 

Note the significance of the general title of Book I, and trace 
the gradual clearing up of the mystery started in Chap. II. 

How did Dickens get the knowledge of legal procedure shown 
in II, 2, 3, etc.? Point out differences between English and French 
procedure, as the latter is shown later in the book. 

Comment on the casual way in which various characters are in¬ 
troduced, as Dr. Manette and Sydney Carton in II, 3. Is this 
effective ? 

What is the meaning of the last part of II, 6? The purpose of 
the whole of II, 7 ? Note, in general, the most important passages 
of preparation for future events; as at the end of II, 6, in II, 13, 
the end of II, 16, etc. 

Trace the gradual way, by more or less casual hints, in which 
the identity of various persons is revealed, or important develop¬ 
ments of the plot are made clear; as, for example, the identity of 
Darnay. When is this finally revealed with perfect definiteness? 

What does Madame Defarge’s knitting signify, especially the 
symbolic use in II, 15, etc.? Note the recurrence of the idea from 
time to time. 

Why should Mr. Lorry’s talk with Dr. Manette in II, 19, be as if 
about a third person unnamed? 

Discuss the unity of II, 21. What device is used in aid of 
unity? Is it successful? What is the main subject of the chapter? 
The meaning of the title? 

Note the way in which, as the climax approaches, details are 
very mueh more numerous; more space is given to a shorter period 


522 


APPENDIX 


of time. Is there in consequence any impression of over-elabora¬ 
tion? 

Work out, in general, the time-scheme of the book, with state¬ 
ment of the proportionate space given different periods. 

What is the meaning of the hint at the end of III, 5? 

One chapter of this book has been taken out of its surroundings 
and printed separately as a complete short story. What chapter 
do you think it is? 

Comment on the conclusion of the book. How is the fate of 
Other characters (besides those immediately present) made known? 
Is the device natural, effective? 

Is poetic justice done at the end of the book in all cases? Who 
is the real hero? What would you call the main story? Are there 
any superfluous characters? 

THEME SUBJECTS 

1. The historical setting of A Tale of Two Cities —which may 
be treated in subdivisions as follows: 

The condition of Prance before the Revolution (up 49 ff 
81 ff.). 

The storming of the Bastille. 

The work of the guillotine. 

2. The relation of A Tale of Two Cities to Carlyle’s French 
devolution (p. 41). 

3. Narratives of the following portions of the novel: 

The story of Dr. Manette. 

The story of Charles Darnay. (May be divided: before 
his marriage and after his marriage.) 

The story of Sydney Carton. 

The story of Madame Defarge. 

4. Character sketches of the following: 

Mr. Lorry. 

The Crunchers. > 

Mr. Stryker. 

Lucie Manette. 

Madame Defarge. 

The Marquis St. Evremonde 


APPENDIX 


523 


5. The development of Carton’s character (pp. 34 , 35 ). 

6. Original plan for a dramatization of A Tale of Two Cities 
(pp. 36, 37). 

7. A complete dramatization of some specific scene* e. g. 

Carton in prison. ’ 

8. Themes developing the contrasts mentioned on pages 37, 38. 

9. Comparison and contrast of A Tale of Two Cities , as a’his¬ 
torical novel, with Ivanhoe or Hemry Esmond. (See p. 34.) 

10. Summaries of the trial scenes. 

11. Descriptions of important place settings: e. g., Tellson’s* 
Dr. Manette’s home in Soho, the Defarge wine shop, the chateau of 
St. Evremonde, etc. 

12. A scene in London or Paris in Revolutionary days and now 
(e. g., Saint Antoine; better not chosen except by students who 
have visited the places described). 


SELECTIONS FOR CLASS READING 

' 1. The wine shop in Saint Antoine (pp. 81-85). 

2. “Recalled to life” (pp. 95-107). 

3. The Crunchers (pp. 111-15). 

4. An English trial (pp. 124-33). 

5. A glimpse of Sydney Carton (pp. 149-56). 

6. Monseigneur’s journey (pp. 178-82). 

7. The death of Monseigneur (pp. 200-203). 

8. Sydney Carton and Lucie (pp. 228-33). 

9. The “mender of roads called Jacques” (pp. 251-56). 

10. The destruction of the Bastille (pp. 309-17). 

11. The grindstone (pp. 368-71). 

12. The guillotine (pp. 382, 383). 

13. A French trial (pp. 394-98). 

14. Carton on the night before the final hearing (pp. 432-36). 

15. Carton and Darnay at La Force (pp. 479-84). 

16. “The 'footsteps die out forever” (pp. 506-13). 


/ 


524 


APPENDIX 


SUGGESTIONS FOR DRAMATIZATION 

(With acknowledgments to Simons and Orr’s Dramatization, Scott, 
Foresman and Company, 1913) 

It has been the experience of many teachers that ' ‘ dramatization 
of the literature studied is one of the most successful of all devices 
for vitalizing the work of the English class. ” Nor is dramatiza¬ 
tion difficult if the task is approached with an understanding of 
the book in hand, and of the sort of scenes that can be presented 
with some effectiveness by young students. 

In dramatizations from a novel it will usually be found that the 
author provides plenty of conversation, which can be and should be 
taken over with little, if any, change. A novel of any leftgth, how¬ 
ever, presents so many interesting, even highly dramatic, dialogues 
that the choice of the best ones for presentation may be puzzling. 

It is important that the scene or group of scenes chosen shall 
have a certain clearness and completeness and unity by itself, 
without depending too much on the rest of the story; that the 
material selected shall have real dramatic quality—shall present 
interesting action, not mere talk; and that it shall not be too diffi¬ 
cult for amateur actors without elaborate costumes or stage set¬ 
tings. 

To illustrate the last point it may be noted that any scenes 
in which fighting or other violent action occurs—tempting though 
they may be to the youthful mind—cannot be undertaken because 
they would almost invariably lead to “ horseplay.' 1 Nor can 
scenes involving much movement from place to place be undertaken; 
only scenes of considerable talk and action within a very limited' 
space are practicable. 

Scenes and incidents should be left unchanged if possible; but 
sometimes it is desirable to put in one scene related events and 
conversations that can just as well occur at one time and place, 
though they are not so represented in the story. For example, in 
Simons and Orr’s dramatization from Treasure Island, a confer¬ 
ence between Doctor Livesey and Jim Hawkins, which in the story 
takes place outside the blockhouse, is put inside in order to prevent 
a change of setting. And in the dramatization from Henry Esmond, 


APPENDIX 


525 


certain events which in the novel are spread over three days are 
put in a single scene. Teachers and students who have had their 
attention called to the way Shakspere treated his sources in writ¬ 
ing his plays ( Macbeth, for example) will readily appreciate the 
frequent need of condensation and concentration. 

Very long speeches should usually be avoided, but as they do not 
often occur in novels not much difficulty on this score is to be ex¬ 
pected. Even moderately long speeches, however, may sometimes 
be interrupted effectively by remarks that some character might 
naturally make, though it is usually best to * 1 stick to one’s text. ’ ’ 

Sometimes a scene may be greatly helped if an expository or 
descriptive passage is put into the mouth of one of the characters. 
This should not be done, however, unless such a shift aids clearness 
or serves some real need. 

Stage directions—descriptions of the scene or the persons, and 
statements of action accompanying the speeches—may often be 
taken directly from the book in hand, but sometimes must be sup¬ 
plied. The very full directions given by recent playwrights (in 
contrast with the meager directions in Shakspere’s plays) may be 
examined to advantage. See, for example, plays by Ibsen, Bernard 
Shaw, Sir James M. Barrie, and others. Usually, however, little is 
to be gained by elaborate directions. 

In Simons and Orr’s Dramatization (Second Year, pp. 47-73), is 
an interesting series of four scenes from A Tale of Two Cities. 

The first scene “The Honest Tradesman at Home, ” is laid in a 
room in the Crunchers’ home. The conversation is that beginning 
at the top of page 112 of this edition, and includes most of the 
remainder of the chapter, with additions from pages 244-246; the 
purpose being to give hints of Cruncher’s occupation. 

The next three scenes—“ Knitting” (pp. 247 ff.), ‘ 1 Still Knit¬ 
ting” (pp. 261 ff.), and “The Knitting Done” (pp. 490 ff.)— 
present Madame Defarge as their 11 central figure, and the progress 
of her knitting—the register she makes of those doomed to fall at 
the hands of the revolutionists—marks the progress of the plot of 
the story. . . . The dialogue of the novel is used practically 

as it stands with occasional abridgment. Change of scene is avoided 
by having the entire action take place in the first instance . . . 
within the wine shop, instead of partly there; and partly in Dr. 
Manette’s old room over the shop. In the next scene . . . the 


526 


APPENDIX 


events of the evening and the next day are represented as occurring 
at the same time. In the last scene . . . both setting and time 
are kept as in the original. ’ ’ 

Various dramatizations of A Tale of Two Cities have been 
staged, and it may be possible to secure acting versions. A recent 
play with Sydney Carton as its central figure was called The Only 
Way. 


CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 


In the following parallel columns are given the most impor¬ 
tant dates in the history of English and American literature 
from 1775, the year with which The Tale of Two Cities opens 
(Dickens A\as born in 1812), down to the end of the nineteenth 
century, fepecial care has been taken to include the classics 
commonly read in high schools, so that the historical background 
of any given classic will be apparent from the table. 


AMERICAN 

1775 Trumbull : M’Fingal. 
Henry : Speech in the 

Virginia Convention. 

1776 The Declaration of Inde¬ 

pendence. 

Paine: Common Sense. 

1783 The Treaty of Paris. 

17S5 Dwight: The Conquest 
of Canaan. 

1786 Freneau: Poems. 

1789 Franklin : Autobiography, 
second part, written. 

1796 Washington : Farewell 

Address. 

1798 Brown : Wieland. 

J. Hopkinson : Hail 

Columbia. 


ENGLISH 


1775 

Burke : 

Speech on Con- 


ciliation. 


Sheridan 

: The Rivals. 

1776 

Gibbon : 

Decline and Fall 


of Roman Empire. 

1779 

Johnson: 

: Lives of the 


Poets. 

1783 

Crabbe : 

The Village. 

1785 

Cowper: 

The Task. 

1786 

Burns : 

Poems. 

1789 

Blake : 

Songs of Inno- 


cenee. 


1791 

Boswell: 

Life of Dr. 


Johnson. 

1798 

Wordsworth and Cole- 


ridge : Lyrical Ballads 
(“The Ancient Mari¬ 
ner,” etc.). 


1801-1900 


1803 The Louisiana Purchase. 


1805 

1808 


Scott: Lay of the Last 
Minstrel. 

Scott: Marmdon. 


527 




528 


APPENDIX 


AMERICAN 

1809 Irving: Knickerbocker’s 
History of Neto York. 


1812-14 War with England. 

1814 Key: The Star-Spangled 

Banner. 

1815 Freneau : Poems. 


1817 Bryant: Thanatopsis. 


1819 

1820 


Drake: The American 

Flag. 

Irving : The Sketch Book. 
The Missouri Compromise. 


1821 Cooper: The Spy. 
Bryant: Poems. 


1822 

1823 

1824 

1825 

1826 


Irving: Bracebridge Hall. 

Payne: Home, Sweet 

Home. 


Cooper: The Pilot. 

Irving : Tales of a Trav¬ 
eler. 


Webster: The Bunker 

mil Monument. 

Cooper : The Last of the 
Mohicans. 


1828 Poe: Tamerlane 
Other Poems. 


and 


1831 

1832 

1833 


Poe: Poems. 

Irving: The Alhambra. 

S. F. Smith : America. 

Poe: MS. Found in a 
Bottle. 



ENGLISH 

1809 

Byron : English Bards 
and Scotch Reviewers. 

1810 

Scott : The Lady of the 
Lake. 

1811 

J. Austen: Sense and 
Sensibility. 

1812 

Byron : Childe Harold, 
I, II. 

1813 

Southey : Life of Nelson. 

1814 

Scott: Waverlcy. 

Wordsworth: The Excur¬ 
sion. 

1815 

The Battle of Waterloo. 

1S16 

Byron : The Prisoner of 
Chillon ; Childe Harold, 
III. 

Coleridge: Christabel. 

1S17 

Keats : Poems (first col¬ 
lection). 

1818 

Byron : Childe Harold, 
IV. 

1819 

Scott: Ivanhoe. 

1820 

Keats: Poems. 

Shelley : Prometheus Un¬ 
bound. 

1821 

Shelley : Adonais. 

De Quincey : Confessions 
of an Opium Eater. 

1S23 

Scott : Quentin Durward. 
Lamb : Essays of Elia. 

1824 

Landor : Imaginary Con¬ 
versations. 

1825 

Macaulay : Essay on Mil- 
ton. 

1827 

A. and C. Tennyson : 
Poems by Two Broth¬ 
ers. 

1828 

Carlyle : Essay on Burns. 

1830 

Tennyson : Poems Chiefly 
Lyrical. 

1832 

Death of Scott; The Re¬ 
form Bill. 

1833 

Carlyle: Sartor Resartus. 
Tennyson : Poems. 
Browning : Pauline. 




APPENDIX 


529 


AMERICAN 


1835 

Drake : The Culprit Fay, 
etc. 

1S36 

Holmes : 

Poems. 


Emerson : 

Nature. 

1837 

Emerson : 
Scholar. 

The American 


Hawthorne 

: Twice-Told 


Tales, first series. 
Whittier: Poems. 


1839 Poe : Tales of the Grotes¬ 

que and Arabesque. 

Longfellow : Voices of the 
Night. 

1840 Dana : Two Years Before 

the Mast. 

1841 Emerson : Essays, first 

series. 

Longfellow : Ballads and 
Other Poems. 

1S42 Hawthorne: Twice-Told 
Tales, second series. 


1S43 Poe: The Gold-Bug. 

Prescott: Conquest of 

Mexico. 


1844 Emerson : Essays, second 

series. 

Lowell: Poems. 

1845 Poe: The Raven and 

Other Poems. 

1846 Hawthorne: Mosses from 

an Old Manse. 

1846-48 War with Mexico. 

1847 Emerson : Poems. 
Longfellow: Evangeline. 
Parkman : The Oregon 

T rail. 

1848 Lowell : Vision of Sir 

Launfal. 

1849 Irving: Oliver Goldsmith. 


1550 Emerson : Representative 
Men. 

Hawthorne: The Scarlet 
Letter. 


ENGLISH 


IS 35 

Browning: 

Paracelsus. 

1836 

Dickens : 

Pickwick Pa 


pers. 


1837 

Victoria became Queen. 


De Quincey: Revolt of 
the Tartars. 


Carlyle: The French 
Revolution. 


1840 Macaulay: Essay on 

Clive. 

1841 Browning : Pippa Passes. 
Macaulay : Essay on War¬ 
ren Hastings. 

1842 Macaulay: Lays of An¬ 

cient Rome. 

Browning: Dramatic 
Lyrics. 

1843 Dickens: A Christmas 

Carol. 

Macaulay : Essay on Ad¬ 
dison. 

Ruskin : Modern Painters, 
' Vol. I. 

1844 E. B. Browning: Poems. 


1845 Browning: Dramatic Ro¬ 

mances and Lyrics. 

1846 Dickens : The Cricket on 

the Hearth. 


1847 De Quincey : Joan of Arc. 
Tennyson : The Princess. 
Thackeray : Vanity Fair. 
C. Bronte : Jane Eyre. 

1848 Macaulay: History of 

England, I, II. 

1849 De Quincey : The English 

Mail Coach. 

M. Arnold : The Strayed 
Reveller, etc. 

1850 Tennyson : In Mcmoriam. 
Dickens: David Copper- 

field. 



530 


APPENDIX 


AMERICAN 

1851 Hawthorne: The House 

of the Seven Gables. 
Parkman : The Conspir¬ 
acy of Pontiac. 

1852 Mrs. Stowe : Uncle Tom’s 

Cabin. 


1854 Thoreau : Walden. 

1855 Longfellow: Hiawatha. 

Whitman: Leaves of 

Grass. 

1856 Motley: Rise of the Dutch 

Republic. 

Curtis : Prue and I. 


1858 Longfellow : Courtship of 
Miles Standish. 

Holmes : Autocrat of the 
Breakfast Table. 


1861-65 The Civil War. 


1862-66 Lowell: Biglow Pa¬ 
pers, II. 

1863 Longfellow: Tales of a 
Wayside Inn. 


1865 Whitman : Drum Taps. 

1866 W T hittier: Snow-Bound. 


ENGLISH 

1851 Thackeray: Lectures on 

English Humorists. 

G. Meredith : Poems. 

1852 Thackeray: Henry Es¬ 

mond. 

1853 M. Arnold: Poems 

(“Sohrab and Rustum,” 
etc.). 

Mrs. Gaskell: Cranford. 


1855 R. Browning: Men and 

Women. 

Tennyson : Maud. 

1856 Macaulay : E s s a y s on 

Johnson and Goldsmith. 
Mrs. Browning: Aurora 
Leigh. 

1857 Hughes: Tom Brown’s 

School Days. 


1859 Tennyson : Idylls of the 

King. 

Dickens : A Tale of Two 
Cities. 

G. Eliot: Adam Bede. 
Meredith : Ord ea l of 

Richard Fever el. 

Darwin : The Origin of 
Species. 

1860 G. Eliot: The Mill on 

the Floss. 

1861 G. Eliot: Silas Manner. 
Iteade : The Cloister and 

the Hearth. 

Palgrave: The Golden 

Treasury. 

1862 Meredith: Modern Love, 

etc. 

1863 G. Eliot: Romola. 

1864 Browning: Dramatis Per¬ 

sona?. 

Swinburne: Atalanta in 
Calydon. 

1865 Ruskin: Sesame and 

Lilies. 

1866 Ruskin : A Crown of Wild 

Olive. 




APPENDIX 


531 


AMERICAN 

186S Hale: The Man Without 
a Country, etc. 


1570 Bret FI arte: The Luck 

of Roaring Camp, etc. 

1571 Howells: Their Wedding 

Journey. 


1873 

Aldrich : 
etc. 

Marjorie Daw, 

1876 

Mark Twain : Tom Saw¬ 
yer. 

1877 

Lanier : 

Poems. 

1879 1 

Cable : 

Old Creole Days. 


Stockton 

: Rudder Grange. 

1881 

Whittier 

: The King's 


Missive. 


1886 H. Jackson : Sonnets and 

Lyrics. 

1887 M. E. Wilkins : A Humble 

Romance, etc. 

1888 Whitman: November 

Boughs. 


1890 E. Dickinson : Poems, 

first series. 

1891 Whitman : Goodbye, My 

Fancy. 


1898 War with Spain. 


ENGLISH 

1868 Browning : The Ring and 

the Book. 

1868-70 Morris: The Earthly 
Paradise. 

1869 Tennyson : T he H oly 

Grail, etc. 

1870 D. G. Rossetti: Poems. 

1871 Swinburne : Songs Before 

Sunrise. 

1S72 Tennyson: Gareth and 
Lynette, etc. 

1873 Arnold : Literature and 
Dogma. 

1876 Morris: Sigurd the Vol- 
sung. 

1878 Stevenson : An Inland 

Voyage. 

1879 Stevenson : Travels with 

a Donkey. 

Meredith : The Egoist. 

1881 D. G. Rossetti : Ballads 

and Sonnets. 

1882 Stevenson : New Arabian 

Nights. 

1883 Stevenson : Treasure Is¬ 

land. 

1886 Stevenson : Kidnapped. 

1887 Stevenson : The Merry 

Men (“M arkhei m,” 
etc.). 

1888 Kipling: Plain Tales 

from the Hills. 

B a r r. i e : Auld Licht 
Idylls. 

1889 Browning: Asolando. 

1891 Kipling: Life’s Handi¬ 

cap. 

1892 Tennyson died. 

1893 Conington : Translation 

of Aeneid published. 
Barrie: Two of Them. 

1901 Queen Victoria died. 



532 


APPENDIX 


REPORT ON FICTION 

1. Title: . 

2. Author: Name in full:. 

Nationality:. born :.. died:. 

3. Setting : Time.. 

Place.. 

4. Opening Situation: (Tell how events stand at the beginning) 


5. Closing Situation: (Tell how the story turns out). 























APPENDIX 


533 


(Continued) 

6. Climax: (Point where the interest is highest) 


7. Opinion: 


8. Quotation : 


9. Date Read : 



























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